Empire of Bones
by 13ASB
Summary: In the sequel to "From Dust to Dust," Samantha Parker has emerged from the 98th Hunger Games as a victor. When her first tributes are forced into the contest on the apocalyptic streets of ruined Chicago, however, Sam will have to face her fears once more while the Capitol watches on - fragmenting ever closer to chaos.
1. Clouds Over Panem

_**Author's Note: Welcome to a future where Thresh won the 74**__**th**__** Hunger Games. The Capitol has evolved into a corrupt yet powerful entity in the years past, and the Games have raised the stakes along with it. This story is the sequel to "From Dust to Dust," in which District 10's quiet yet determined Samantha Parker scored an unlikely victory in the 98**__**th**__** Hunger Games. Now finding herself a victor, she must deal with the memories of her terrifying past while confronting an uncertain future of fears, tears, and love. Through it all, the Capitol does not sleep – and some of the brightest eyes are on the girl from District 10.**_

_**The Hunger Games, Panem, Finnick, Haymitch, Gale, Johanna, and etc all belong to Suzanne Collins. Please review! Every constructive criticism helps me become a better writer and improve this story and series. If you have any questions or suggestions, please let me know!  
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* * *

**District 10**

Winter was cold on the prairie.

Snow had rained down hard from blankets of gray cloud cover that bathed District 10 in a melancholy sea. The last season of the year never did good things for a region based on animal husbandry and ranching; barns prepared with cubic miles of hay and feed stood stocked to the brim with cows, horses, pigs, and sheep. The green grass of the prairie and the dusty roads of the interior town had long since turned into a continuous sheet of icy white. The frozen air pervaded every nook and cranny, seeping into travelers outside to the bone.

Samantha Parker wrapped a powder blue fleece blanket around herself tightly, trying to ward off the depressing light that scattered in through her bedroom window. The mountain of sheets and blankets she had draped on her bed did a much better job of shielding out the cold than had the camel-skin blanket she'd skinned and cannibalized in the 98th Hunger Games six months earlier, but there was no beating winter. It came, it stayed, and no one could force it to leave before it was ready. Not even a victor.

Sam's spacious house in the Victor's Village did a better job defending against the elements than most of the wooden hovels of the district. She kept it in good order and housed her older brother Jake most of the time, keeping the siblings free from the weather. Not that they really needed it – the Parkers were a wealthy family compared to the majority of District 10's citizenry. Sam's spoils of winning the Games were an unneeded, if welcomed, luxury.

Her morning peace was quickly shattered.

A loud "_Dammit!_" shouted from the downstairs of the house – certainly not Jake. The oak door to her room was thrown open, giving way to a very disgruntled woman in her late thirties. The woman's high cheekbones and messy black hair understated her status – Cheyenne Clinton had been one of Sam's two mentors during the previous Games, having won herself back in the 76th running of the event. Now, however, she was content yelling at her part-time protégé.

"Why the hell did you let me drink so much?" Cheyenne blabbered into the room, idly staring out the frosted window. "I feel like I got run over by a steer."

"Maybe you should think ahead for once," Sam murmured into her bed, smashing her face into her pillow and letting her brown hair fall over the sheets. "Maybe you should quit drinking and let me sleep."

"That's a horrible idea. You should be ashamed," Cheyenne swatted the air. "This is a crappy day already and it's not even ten."

"I bet Dallas would like to help."

"I bet he would. He's so much nicer than you. Why does everyone say you're sweet?"

Cheyenne slammed the door and left for the house of Dallas Grissom, District 10's third and only other victor. He had shared a much tighter bond with Sam in the 98th Games than had Cheyenne, patiently teaching her the subtle skills to survive and doing his best to round up sponsors. Sam hadn't realized it at the time, but he and Cheyenne had done considerable work to ensure her survival after she'd escaped from the opening Cornucopia bloodbath at the start of the contest. Their efforts had made her a hit in the Capitol, portrayed as an innocent thrown into an ocean of killers, yet capable enough to forge the alliance that had staved off loneliness in the arena.

That wasn't too far from the truth.

Sam hated to admit the things that still plagued her – not in physical form or bodily hurt, but torturing her mind and playing through her thoughts. The sneer and ferocity of the tribute from District 1, a silver-haired vixen named Royal who had been seconds away from delivering a horrific death to Sam before she'd been literally shorn in two by a colossal cephalopod mutt. The quiet friendliness and comfort of the girl tribute from District 4, a small girl named Gannet who had never belonged in the Games. Sam had taken to her like a little sister, and their alliance in the arena –and her death at the hands of a brutish beast of a boy from District 2 – still forced Sam into shudders. It had been a horrible thing.

Worst of all was Storm. Storm Hawthorne had been District 12's male tribute in her Games, an olive-complexioned boy with an idealistic disgust for everything to do with the Capitol. He'd been smitten with her at first sight, and she'd grown from an initial dislike of his methods to general friendship to something more. Sam couldn't forget the kiss they'd shared on the final night of the Games, where he'd made her feel truly alive and hopeful.

Then he'd been taken away from her. Just like that, all that warmth was snatched away and thrown aside forever by the worst Panem had to offer.

He'd made her promise to find someone else, to love and live without the memory of him plaguing her thoughts. Sam found the prospect hard, and in practice it was worse. Remembering his arms around her, his voice bringing her through the worst of times in the arena – every time she thought of it she was weighted down by survivor's guilt. He was simply a memory now to most of Panem; to her, he would never pass away.

The Victor's Tour would force her to confront all those horrible memories in person soon. Situated six months after the prior Games, it took the victor through every district and the Capitol in honor of their accomplishment – really, just a parade of the Capitol's power. Sam still had a few days before the unfortunate day would come, but she felt sick at the thought. It'd be horrible to see those accusing eyes looking up at her, wondering why she was there and their tribute was not.

It was a question she asked herself frequently. For two months she'd fallen into a heavy depression, reliving every moment in her head. Dallas had called it post-traumatic stress disorder, some sickness Sam had never heard of. He'd helped her out along with her friends, Clara Bowie and Clay Lamar, and her brother. She felt better now, but the lingering thoughts did not leave.

Footsteps downstairs alerted her to a visitor. Had Cheyenne come back already? No, it was probably her brother.

"Gimme a minute, Jake," she called out as she opened the door, slipping a royal blue robe around her shoulders.

"I actually haven't seen him in a while."

Sam looked up with a start. Standing at the top of the staircase was Clay, his square-jowled face and stocky body considering her with intrigue. He ran a rough hand through his short dark hair, walking up to the door and taking a look at her bedroom. His coarse skin reflected his upbringing – unlike Sam, Clay was the second son of a poorer family, understanding full well the fragile line between survival and starvation in the downtrodden District 10. He'd had to work for everything he had.

"Matches you," he indicated her robe, its sapphire cloth nearly meeting the same hue as Sam's bright blue eyes. "I dunno how you keep your place so neat with your…guests."

"What'd she leave?" Sam instinctively asked.

"Couple of bottles, and a smashed one, by the front door," Clay jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "I don't know why you let her over to your place."

"She's my mentor. Or was," Sam defended Cheyenne, though she didn't know why. "I guess still is. Besides, she's part of the reason I'm even still here."

"You're the reason you're still here."

Sam tied her hair back in her usual loose ponytail, rolling her eyes. "I had plenty of help. Let's not pretend otherwise."

"You've got to stop beating yourself up sometime, Sammy," Clay said. "But c'mon, it's not the kinda day to be depressing. Well, it is outside, but who cares about that."

"Can I at least get dressed?"

"Psh. You're so slow."

Sam slipped off to her second-story bathroom, taking a long look at herself in the mirror. The heart-shaped fifteen year-old face with the blue eyes that looked back at her seemed so alien now. It was soft, warm – two things people told her she was, but she vehemently disagreed with. She was a proven killer. A murderer. Every victor was, no matter what they thought.

Clay was raiding her pantry as she trotted downstairs, helping himself to a block of cheese.

"Do you really have to do that?" Sam asked exasperatingly. "Look, I have to go buy a few things anyway today, so I'll go buy you your own cheese."

Sam wasn't actually angered by him. She had more than enough money now than she knew what to do with and was happy to share with the comparatively poor Clay. His family wouldn't like it if they'd found out – his parents, like many of the poor in District 10, resented the wealthier ranch owners like Sam's father. Despite her friendship with Clay, they lumped her right in – especially after she'd killed off her fellow district tribute in the Games, a particularly dim boy named Laredo who had come from a downtrodden family of butchers.

"That'd be good," Clay laughed. "But I don't need cheese, since I just ate some of yours."

Sam opened the front door to deep snowdrifts, but something else quickly pulled her attention away. A low, thunderous sound echoed over the frozen landscape, starting soft but growing quickly into a loud roar. Sam's mind pulled up the first memory it could with the unnatural sound.

_Royal stumbled forward on the desert earth, Sam's blade miraculously lodged in her back. The tentacled mutt snarled in anger and grabbed the silver-haired tribute from District 1, picking her up with ease and shaking her about. The mutt unleashed a thunderous battle cry of rage and triumph as it wrapped a second arm around Royal's shoulders, hooking under her skin with needle-like arm teeth and pulling apart with all its might. Royal exploded in a crimson starburst of blood, her body torn like paper-_

"Sam! Snap out."

She blinked her eyes to Clay's concerned expression as he held her by both shoulders, staring into her eyes.

"You weren't really looking too good," he said. "Are you okay? You sure you want to go out?"

She shook the memory away. "Yeah, yeah, it's fine. I'm fine."

The real creator of the deep roar thundered into view from her house in the Victor's Village, however – and it brought an unequally unsettling feeling.

A gray Capitol hovercraft bristling with guns and flanked by four military air drones plowed its way through the gray sky, heading to the town square.

* * *

**Three Months Earlier – The Capitol, Special Projects Division**

Head Gamesmaker Phaeston Rex enjoyed returning to where his rise to fame had begun. As leader of the Research and Development arm of the Special Projects Division in the Capitol, he'd had unfettered access to the best equipment of modern civilization – not to mention a nearly unlimited budget to continue the technological progression and prowess of Panem's military and authoritative might. More than a decade in these sterile white labs had honed his brain into the finest scientific and logical mind in the nation. Even though he had retired from the position to captain the Hunger Games – now heading into his third season after the resounding popularity of Sam's victory in the 98th competition – he still found time for his love of scientific creation.

It was here where the roots of his arena mutts and military drones were laid.

Rex's unnatural, electronic blue eyes flitted around the colossal white lab like fireflies. The edifice was easily the size of a large warehouse, laced with equipment that would baffle most people. It was said that a scientist in R&D had access to more information on the networked intranet than a citizen of any of Panem's districts could learn in their entire lives – and such a decisive power gap kept the Capitol firmly in control

After all, as Rex knew, information was power. Information began and ended with him.

The gray-haired Head Gamesmaker was an ambitious man at his core, albeit one who never strayed from his numbers and cold logic. He had partnered an unorthodox friendship with the skeptical and pragmatic commander of the Panem military forces, a veteran officer named Trajan Arterius. They shared in common a close tie to the sitting president of Panem, Octavian – a petulant and young ruler who governed more through material whims and spontaneity than he did through strategic brilliance.

Rex hated that. How _irrational_. In the Gamesmaker's words, it was the finest case of the "ghost in the machine" - the illogical animal brain that overrode the calculating brilliance of men like him. However, having the respect of Octavian paid off in controlling power. Rex was not _stupidly_ idealistic and unable to see that.

"I was informed you had something for me," Commander Trajan shook Rex's hand, the powerfully-built officer's trademark flat vocal tones sounding particularly pronounced in the sterile scientific air. "I'm not a fan of labs like this."

"You will be impressed, Commander, labs or not," Rex gave him the subtlest of smiles – an expression the Head Gamesmaker often wore like a stain of varnish. "I instructed you several months ago to work on information security in the districts. How does the task go?"

"It's not something you implement overnight," Trajan lamented with his usual disdain. "I have budgetary concerns, manpower issues, and a decisive lack of camera drones I was promised by this very department. President Octavian is more concerned with his animal gladiator _games_ than he is with domestic security."

"A shame where he puts his research priorities," Rex admitted. To keep Capitol citizens entertained and occupied during the offseason of the Hunger Games, Octavian had begun a series of pit-fighting extravaganzas in the alpine city using genetically-engineered animals. Rex had heartily endorsed the idea – he used it as a money-making baptism by fire for his own arena mutts, selecting the best fighters to copy and unleash on unsuspecting Hunger Games tributes. He'd done just that the prior Games with the aquatic octopus mutt that had extinguished Royal's life and nearly taken Sam's at the climax of the tournament. To a man like Trajan however, it had to seem a waste of money.

"So how does that help me?" Trajan got to the point quickly.

"I have a tank over here you may want to look at. Inside contains the answer to your resource shortages," Rex pointed out, leading the way past rows of computers. "It's occupant has been under development since I was working here. Only now has he panned out completely."

"_He_?"

"I prefer to humanize my projects. For good reason, this time."

Rex stopped before a ten-foot tall tank filled with bubbling blue fluid. Trajan didn't understand the purpose of what floated within, but the form was unmistakable. The creature – mutt, he supposed, although it was a stretch to say that in these circumstances - within would be familiar to anyone.

"It's adaptive intelligence far exceeds our own. Endoskeleton _and_ exoskeleton; the latter concealed by the layers of skin," Rex explained before his tank. "Expanded heart and larger lungs; hence the height. It promotes greater oxygen transport through the body for greater physical stamina. Slightly larger brain than a human being, but for good measure. We've managed to…combine machine with nerve on this one. Hard-wired its neurons directly into a networked system. However many we make, they can all share data as software. Grow. Adapt. Think as one."

Trajan whistled. The creation before him was not just a horrible mutt – it was _beautiful_. Not in the physical sense, but what Rex had done was create a work of art from gene sequences. He'd conveniently solved all his information security concerns at the same time – no matter what Octavian could praise him for, Rex followed through with the actual results. It made grading which superior he preferred to report to much easier.

"This your only one?" he asked the Gamesmaker. "Hate to throw a prototype into the field."

"We have the…blueprints, if you will," Rex assured him. "Go ahead and send him out for testing. Scientists here will map its data; test its networking and information transmission."

"You sound like you have a suggestion."

"I do," Rex nodded. "Why don't you take him for a spin in District 10?"


	2. First Cracks of Lightning

Sam felt waves of trepidation wash over her as the hovercraft hummed towards the center of District 10. What was the Capitol doing here in the backwater area of Panem? It made no sense.

"C'mon, let's go see what's up," Clay stepped out the door of her house and into the snow, intent on heading into town.

"No, wait," Sam whimpered. "Clay, I have a really bad feeling about this."

"What's the worry?" he turned back to her, his eyes speaking of mischief. "If they wanted to kill us all, they'd just do it. Better to know now than later. C'mon."

Clay's optimism did nothing to aid Sam's fears. She'd seen the Capitol's worst traits up close and personal, watched them as they'd killed and maimed – their unexpected presence here was not something good. Who had to die today?

A route from the Village to the town square had been dug out fairly well two days before, enough for the two teens to make decent progress beside the knee-high snow drifts. District 10 was eerily quiet, even for winter's standards – rusted metal shutters barely moved; drab curtains narrowly twitched on houses the further in towards the Hall of Justice they went. The hovercraft had taken up a position around the square now, flanked by all four of the drones. Sam and Clay barely reached the gray stone buildings surrounding the Hall of Justice in the modest square before a long pole descended out of the bottom of the aircraft. Two dozen white-armored Peacekeepers had moved into the square, led by their district chief – 10's Head Peacekeeper, a sandy-haired, wiry man named Sidon. He had never made much of an impression on Sam – District 10's relatively lax Peacekeeper security led the force to be overlooked by most residents. They understood the rules, but that was about it.

Clay was prepared for his mission of intrigue.

"I found this abandoned cellar at the old grain shop that got abandoned," he whispered to Sam as they scooted around the perimeter of the town square. "It's dusty, but we can get a view without being seen. Best seats in the house."

Sam followed, but she felt more and more nervous with each passing second. Sidon was talking sternly to his Peacekeepers – what was the occasion? Who had shown up? Was it…Sam gulped at the thought…was it her?

She still got shivers about President Octavian's coal-like beady eyes boring into hers after her victory in the Games…promising her all sorts of misery in whatever way he could find. Was this all about him and her?

"In here!" Clay had opened a wooden door to an old basement leading into a dark underground area. "Before they see. C'mon!"

Sam looked off to the woods near the town square – the only forested patch of District 10 began there, winding off towards the tallest point in the area, Midland Hill. She wanted so much to return to that safety, to run off away from whatever horrible thing was going to happen here…but she relented.

She slipped in before anyone in the nearly-empty square could see the two jumping down into the cellar. Clay had been right about the musk – even with the snowy conditions, dust and spiders still clung to the brick walls of the cellar. Straw lined a shallow floor that sunk underground for a dozen feet, braced by wooden pillars that ran to the ceiling. At the end of the twenty-foot storage area, the basement ran up and opened in a two-foot window that gave a small but clear view of the entire area.

"What's happening?" Sam breathed as she approached the window that Clay had already taken a position at, quieting her voice as much as physically possible. She didn't trust this scheme at all.

"Guy got off the hovercraft," Clay pointed out a black-uniformed man, starkly contrasted against the white snow and blank Peacekeeper uniforms. "I don't think he's happy. Looks like he's from the Capitol."

The black-uniformed man looked like anything except a man of the Capitol – he wore a bed of brown hair and a pair of soft brown eyes that Sam could make out even from this distance. The one thing that placed him as different were the tattoos –his uniform covered his body well, but the snake-like lines that ran down his neck were clearly artificial. There was no denying the authority he carried with his posture, however.

One of Sidon's crew walked with an extended hand towards the Capitol man in an offer of greeting. The man scowled and shoved the Peacekeeper aside, approaching Sidon viciously. Sam spotted fear welling up in District 10's Head Peacekeeper's eyes as he was grabbed by the collar of his shirt. The black-uniformed man roared in welcome, snarling obscenities and orders.

"Is he going to…" Sam whispered as the man threw Sidon to the ground, unholstering a pistol.

"Look away," Clay grabbed her in his arms as Sam buried her head in his chest. Why had they come to watch this?

A gunshot cracked through the air.

Sam lifted her eyes to see Sidon still alive and cowering. The uniformed man drew his face inches from the Head Peacekeeper's, his voice just loud enough to reach the cellar.

"_You are to do nothing_," he snarled. "_Nothing. If you think to so much as try a crackdown, I will ensure this bullet hits next time_."

"_Commander Trajan, I don't understand, why-"_

The black-uniformed man turned around, looked back, raised his weapon, and fired.

Sam didn't turn away fast enough. Scarlet blood spattered to the ground as Sidon slumped to the snow. The other Peacekeepers flinched but held their ground.

_No, no, not death again…I don't want that! I don't want to see that again…_

"_Congratulations on your promotion_," the black-uniformed man turned to the nearest Peacekeeper, a man Sam didn't recognize. "_I assume you know better?"_

"_Of course, sir."_

"_Then alright. Make sure my investment isn't wasted."_

Sam gasped involuntarily, immediately realizing her mistake.

The black-uniformed man's eyes flicked towards the sound. It hadn't been much, but with the square absolutely silent apart from the low thrum of the hovercraft and the voices of the Peacekeepers, it had been enough to carry. His finger pointed towards the now-noticed cellar window: "_Go find what's in there. Do as you want. After that, your orders stand."_

Clay grabbed Sam's shoulder roughly, spinning her about and snatching her hand as a solitary Peacekeeper started for the shed. The black-uniformed man ascended up the hovercraft pole as quickly as he had arrived and done his work.

"Go, go," Clay shoved Sam towards the door, throwing it open. "I'll lead back towards the ranches. You head for the woods; we can lose them. Go!"

Sam knew he was right. The black-uniformed man's words had been clear – _do what you want with whoever you find_. No matter what the law was, Peacekeeper jurisdiction held authority. Spying on a Head Peacekeeper's execution – no matter how public it had been – would undoubtedly carry a hefty toll. She wondered if the surrounding houses and shops of the square had been cleared ahead of time.

Worse was wondering what would happen if a Peacekeeper caught them.

Sam made a beeline for the trees, running as best as she could through the snow. Her racing mind sped as Clay bolted in the opposite direction, leaving her to put distance between her and the Peacekeepers as best as she could. Running again…she couldn't stop running. Not since the Games.

_Back at the Cornucopia once more. Royal's arrow whined through the air, thumping into the metal shield. Sam grabbed Storm, covering him with the shield as Royal snarled and moved in. The girl from District 5 twitched in death as she and Storm sprinted for the tree grove. Anything to get away from the killer from District 1…keep running, keep running_.

She couldn't think such things now. Running in the Hunger Games and running from a Peacekeeper were two very different events.

Sam had made it nearly two hundred yards into the woods when the Peacekeeper's baton struck her from behind. She hadn't even heard him gaining ground in the damp snow that muffled noise like a pillow of cotton. Sam yelped and fell to the ground, a throbbing pain rising immediately from her head.

The Peacekeeper quickly shoved a knee into the small of her back, grabbing her wrists and securing them together with a plastic tie. He flipped her over, his face ugly in the gray sky shrouded by dead wooded canopy – a scarred face, curved and fat yet powerful with brimming muscles. Two dead gray eyes stared at her without empathy or emotion.

"Running from an officer of the law is a _capital offense_," he sneered into her face. "I don't care if you are a victor, girl."

_Why do I ever let Clay make plans?_ Sam thought as fear slithered through her. She didn't know if the Peacekeeper was lying or not – she doubted if they could very well kill a victor, especially the previous Games's winner, but the Peacekeepers had all sorts of nasty alternatives to hanging they could inflict. What would they do? Lock her in a stockade? Publically whip her in the square before the entire district?

"Please," Sam tried appealing to his better nature, if he had one. "I didn't mean anything, I was just trying to go to the square to get-"

"I don't care," the Peacekeeper spat in her face. "You're the last person we get to make an example of before we can't do shit, and I'm damn well going to make sure I enjoy it."

"Look, the Victory Tour is in a week," Sam pleaded. "If you-"

Sam didn't get the chance to finish. A behemoth of a man simply _appeared_ from behind the Peacekeeper, hurling away his firearm and grabbing him by the neck like a toy. The Peacekeeper croaked out a gurgle of a response before he was driven into the trunk of a tree.

"Human, male, Peacekeeper," the man said in a scratched, low voice. He was titanic – at least six and a half feet tall, with a broad chest and massive pectorals. His dirty blonde hair wasn't far from the same look Dallas and Clara both sported – his, however, ran out loosely and long, an unkempt mess. A loose pair of overalls that Sam had often seen the butchers wear covered a simple white shirt that shrouded him from against the snowy cold. He had to be freezing – yet he showed not even the slightest sign of discomfort.

"Who are-" the Peacekeeper stammered.

The man cocked his head and narrowed his eyes, as if seeing something distant. "You are from District 2, the man named Agrius. Your father, Avala, was killed in a rockslide. You left in the hopes of a better life at age sixteen. This is your twelfth year as a Peacekeeper. You served ten in District 11, hanged two innocents. You have been here for two years. District Head Peacekeeper Sidon noted in reports that you have expressed a desire for violence."

The Peacekeeper – Agrius – said nothing, his eyes bulging.

"Interesting," the man bit his lower lip. "You think your life has purpose. You have expressed as much. I come to correct that flaw."

"Who-"

"I am Trajan's investment. My life supersedes your own. You die without the purpose you believed in."

The man lunged at Agrius, snapping his neck between two huge mitts of hands. _Crack!_ Agrius fell to the snow, instantly dead.

Sam struggled with her restraints, her wrists pulling with all she had. The man before her scared her with the most innate of fears – an animal desire to get away as fast as she could. Sweat popped out over her forehead despite the cold air, freezing and seeping along her skin. The man turned his head towards her, his eyes black and cold.

_Black like Octavian's…_

"Did that…frighten you?" he asked calmly. "It should not. Killing is frowned upon only because human society says it is bad, guided by a history full of overlooked bloodshed. But you would know…wouldn't you?"

Sam whimpered in terror as he knelt to the ground beside her, his eyes never leaving hers. "He spoke of you; my father, that is. I know who you are. Samantha Parker, District 10, winner of the 98th Hunger Games, killer of tributes Troop, Laredo, Fresco, and Royal, in that order. Your primary weapon was a Gurkha kukri, originally designed in a nation that no longer exists. No longer exists…just like those tributes. Interesting, wouldn't you say?"

He scanned his face like a methodical machine, inching his eyes over every square centimeter of flesh and skin.

"I swear, I didn't mean anything," Sam hoarsely gasped. "I don't know anything."

"I think he is infatuated with you to a degree," the man ignored Sam's words. "My father spoke of you while I took my first steps of awareness. I can see your history, your past. No mother. Shunned by a district swamped in a decisive wealth gap. Rejected by your father who only wanted sons. Befriended by only two, relying on your brother as your emotional stability. Interesting…I don't know why he found you so interesting, yet I find myself wanting to know more, too. You won a game of death without any reason to win."

"Who…who are you?" Sam asked.

"I? I am here, that is all," the man said. "My father named me Nihlus. It is a name without meaning or purpose to you…and to me. What purpose is a name? What purpose is your name, Miss Parker?"

"I, uh…" Sam stumbled over words. "I don't think it has one."

Nihlus laughed, an alien thing. "You are _enjoyable!_ My father sent me here to District 10 with no reason nor meaning, yet you intrigue me."

"Who is your father?" Sam asked, trying to keep the strange man talking. If it worked, maybe he wouldn't kill her.

"Simply another man from the Capitol. I believe you know who he is," Nihlus cocked his head. "It is interesting how much a Head Gamesmaker can come to respect such a small girl from a snow-covered prairie."

_Rex_.

Sam felt her heart quicken as she worked her restraints again. She knew seeing those electric-blue eyes during the post-Games crowning ceremony spelled trouble. What did _he_ want with her? After his Games had nearly killed her, after his mutts had ravaged both her and other tributes – now had he sent this…_man_ to watch her? To stalk her?

What was his interest in her?

As if reading her mind, Nihlus addressed her question. "You wish to know why you are so interesting," he spoke. "You and I are two people with meaningless names, so I will share you a secret my father told me. You will not speak of it to any other. You will similarly not speak of _me_."

He bent in close to Sam, his breath hot and acrid. "There is a storm coming in the Capitol, Miss Parker. My father is in the eye of it, commanding gale-force winds rushing towards an immovable force that sits in the President's throne. You, a child of a forgotten district ignored by the forces of the Capitol, won Panem's premier show of survival prowess. You are an interesting commodity, now a jewel in my father's eye for navigating his labyrinth of a Games successfully. You have brought attention from all the places you did not want it. You are popular in the Capitol, well-known, proven. You have _value_ in the eyes of simple men."

Nihlus pulled away, sizing her up. "I simply see a small girl lying bound by her wrists in snow, all too easily beaten by a simple Peacekeeper. But my father…and _Octavian_…see a prize."

He grabbed her hands, snatching the plastic tie that kept her restrained and snapping it with his powerful muscles. Nihlus turned to leave, casting his head around once more.

"I don't know what future those men in their ivory towers see for you. But I will watch, because it is _there_. You are no longer a forgotten puzzle piece."

With that, he vanished back into the snowy wood, leaving Sam feeling all the more vulnerable in light of a future fraught with doubt. If the strange man sent here by Phaeston Rex – Nihlus, if that really was his name – was right, she'd drawn far more attention onto her than she ever wanted. And if the Capitol really was in the midst of brewing turmoil, having that spotlight would put her in far more danger than she'd faced before.

Clouds stormed over Sam's future, with thunder crackling on the horizon.

* * *

_**A/N: Dunno how happy I am with that chapter. It just took a really long time to develop...necessary, but little lengthy. Lemme know your thoughts through two chapters!**_


	3. Heart to Heart

"_You will not speak of it to any other. You will not speak of me._" The question to Sam was: or what?

She refused to leave her house in the Victor's Village for the next week, bundled up in blankets as the snow outside waxed and waned. Sam wanted the white matting across District 10 to be gone – all she saw in it was the flash of crimson blood from the Head Peacekeeper and the acrid breath of Nihlus's gravelly voice. Too often since the Games she'd had to think what the Capitol intended for her, ever since Octavian had placed the crown on her head. Would they kill her family and friends? Force her into some horrible occupation in the Capitol?

Or would they simply torture her with this demon who had snapped the Peacekeeper's neck like tinder, fray her nerves to the breaking point until she could hold it in no longer?

Clay came by the next day, apologetic and asking for her forgiveness. She wanted to throw things at him, tell him he'd caused her this new bundle of problems, but she couldn't. She'd won the Hunger Games, not him. This was her mess to clean up. No matter how many times he called her a good person, no matter how much he said she was brave and strong, she didn't believe in herself. It was hard to believe in something she didn't understand.

_This is my fault. I did something bad to provoke all this, and now everyone who even knows me is in trouble_.

Sam felt as if she was trapped under the sheet of ice that covered the ground outside. She wanted to break free from all the controls, all the weight placed over her head as a new victor – yet she couldn't escape now; couldn't ever. As the week before the Victory Tour wound down, she feared having to go see the families of people she'd condemned to death. Any other district would know who killed their children and would have the chance to cement the feelings of doubt that kept crossing her mind.

There were those in District 10 who shared their sentiments of hostility.

The morning of the Victory Tour was bitterly cold, illuminated by a weak sun reflecting off the snowy grounds of the prairie. Sam heard the clatter of feet in her house as she woke up early, praying for anybody _but_ those from the Capitol to have shown up.

_Already? They're not supposed to be here until noon…_

"You can't stay inside forever, Sam."

Her brother Jake tromped upstairs, poking his head in through her door.

"I don't wanna go out," Sam replied groggily.

"Your friend Clara told me you wouldn't go out when she came by three times, either," he said. "You're gonna be out and about the next two weeks. You ain't even gonna say goodbye to the district before you leave?"

"No," she answered. "I just wanna sleep."

"Too bad."

Jake pulled the bed covers off Sam unceremoniously, leaving her curled up in a ball.

"Too cold," she bemoaned.

"Worse outside," he noted. "Better get used to it."

Sam made a show of shivering as she got out of bed, hurrying off to her bathroom to throw on warmer clothes. The snow drifts outside had gotten worse as a blast of frozen air met the two siblings at the door; winter had no doubt reached one of its coldest peaks of recent years. Sam pulled her jacket around her as she left her home, thankful she was able to afford something like that – too many of the poor had no many for clothing that would protect them adequately against nature's worst elements. Already several had frozen to death in District 10, unprepared for the unexpectedly harsh conditions.

"Let's go to the Hill," Jake suggested. "Get away from all the people around town."

Midland Hill had been home to a number of Sam's childhood memories with her brother and friends, cavorting about the open grassy mound and able to see for miles in any direction on the clearest days. She welcomed the opportunity to take it in; during the Victory Tour, she undoubtedly expected to be hurried from one place to the other like a group of cattle ready for the slaughterhouses.

The food parcels had come today; every month the families of District 10 received the Capitol's surplus supply of basic foodstuffs due to Sam's victory in the Games. It was one of the few things she was happy about winning for; as much misery as it had brought down on her emotionally, seeing the children of the poor happily carrying home grain, cooking oil, applesauce, and other necessities that would give them a respite from hunger brought a smile to Sam's face.

"It's good they do this," she mentioned as the two siblings passed by the outskirts of the district's Dairy Ward, home to the milking yards and one of the top poverty-stricken residential communities. Three young children, none of them yet vulnerable to the horrors of the Hunger Games, shouted and chased each other around a dilapidated wooden wagon full of food. "They don't really do anything else for us."

"Given how bad the winter's been, you've probably saved a couple families from starvation already," Jake mused as he watched the kids. "Better than most people can say."

"The Capitol gives them food," Sam corrected, her mind still struggling to find other justifications for her successes.

"I'll put it another way, then," Jake changed gears. "Some other district would have been getting the food in another world, and those kids would be hungry and starving right now with no warmth and no food. What if District 1 won it? Without you, they do. Like they really need anything else there."

Sam said nothing. Laredo wouldn't be dead without her, either, so Jake's logic wasn't exactly right. She wasn't going to fight over such a trivial issue, though; not on her last day in District 10 for two to three weeks. The food would run out after the next Games came and passed, anyway; if winter returned with a vengeance next year, who's to say there'd be these shipments again?

That thought forced Sam to confront a radically different yet far more disturbing predicament: this year she'd be responsible for mentoring two new tributes. She'd turned around the nineteen-year losing streak of District 10, but repeating that feat was near impossible. Sam knew whoever she helped in the Games had virtually no chance of making it out alive and back home.

It was a thought she wanted to delay dealing with as long as possible.

The walk to Midland Hill took just forty-five minutes; an easy commute from the Village on a clear day, yet full of mounds of fresh snow that Jake and Sam spent energy plowing through. A light snowdrift had picked up, obscuring visibility – bad news for the normally cathartic feeling that the hilltop gave Sam. It was gray and unfeeling today; the electric fence surrounding District 10 hummed loudly a mile away, while the snowy prairie stretched on off towards a flat horizon. The wood – a sight that brought Sam uneasy feelings since her confrontation with the Peacekeeper and Nihlus a week ago, despite her childhood moments there – extended off to the right, reaching far around towards the Commerce Ward and the town square. In the summer it was full of green deciduous trees, leafy and teaming with bird calls. Today it was simply a dead collection of spider-like branches and bare tree trunks extending off like a broken maze.

"I remember the first time the two of us came out here on our own," Jake reminisced, standing pensively in the wet snow and looking out. "You were three; I was seven. It was after school let out one day, and Dad was drunk or off with the hands or something. I don't remember. Anyway, I was trying to show you the hills off on the horizon and you weren't even paying attention. You just found a caterpillar in the grass and were way more interested in that; I had no idea what you were doing or thinking then."

His eyes turned towards his sister, standing quietly and looking down at the white-shrouded plains. "I don't think I do now, either. I know you probably don't want to talk about it and you usually aren't the talkative type anyway, but these last months you've been really quiet, looking like you see things the rest of us can't. Are you okay, Sam? I'll listen to anything you have to say. I'm your brother."

Sam kicked at a clod of snow, her eyes downcast. She knew someone would figure it out eventually, goad her to "talk about her feelings" or some other thing. It wasn't a topic she was good at. Growing up with few friends and an often-abusive father had taught her to keep her feelings to herself and internalize her emotions; expressing them was an alien thing altogether.

"I don't, ah," Sam began, first trying to shy away before deciding that wasn't such a great idea. "I don't feel good."

She sat down on the wet ground, ignoring her now-soaking pants and picking up a pile of snow in her palm. "I feel like everything's being taken away from me little by little. Back in the arena everything I tried to hang on to got taken away. I made friends and they died. Shows how good I am."

Sam pitched the snowball down the hill as Jake sat down next to her. She was uncertain where to go next and how much to reveal – Nihlus's words came limping back into her memory. "After I won and they were interviewing me and stuff, the president said something funny. He said…I was a 'most welcome addition to the Capitol.' Now I feel like an animal; like I'm just being dragged along some circus line to be shown off for people to gawk at, and if I don't do what they want how they want, they're gonna hurt you or somebody else I care about. I don't know what's gonna happen to me. It's like I don't have any control over anything."

Jake rubbed fallen snow out of her brown hair, his gaze never leaving. "No one's gonna hurt me or your friends or anybody because of you, Sammy."

"How do you know?" she asked. "I don't."

"Because you're everything they want already," he explained. "You're bright and charming and look great on screen. District 1 won four times in seven years, and Careers had all of those seven before you – you think they just wanted something like that again? Some blank killer from a murder factory that shoots them out like babies? You're somebody everyone can connect to. You have spirit and humanity; something that all those Capitol types and their buddies in the Career districts don't have."

"I don't feel like I do," she said.

"Sometimes we don't always see the good we've done until later," Jake replied. "I know it's gotta be hard trying to do all that Capitol stuff, but it's those tough times that make us happier for the good times. Once winter passes and spring comes back, we'll come back here when it's green and blooming and the baby animals are out. You'll see; it'll get better."

He wrapped her in a hug, looping a dangling lock of hair over her ear. "C'mon. All those people in their weird-colored hairs are gonna be here soon for you. Can't leave them waiting, huh?"

Sam gave a half-hearted smile and brushed snow off her pants as she got up. She let Jake wrap his arm around her shoulders, giving the plains one last look over her shoulder as she left.

Down towards the fence, maybe a half-mile away, a dark shape moved – so unobtrusive and silent that it would have been missed by nearly any eye unused to the lay of the land. It was human – a person had been watching the two of them.

A very _large_ person.


	4. Mentor and Victor

_**A/N: Yes I wrote the song, so…I guess this disclaimer isn't necessary since I don't need to attribute. Note: I am not even half the songwriter I am a fiction writer, for better or worse…**_

* * *

The rest of the dreaded day moved quickly. All too soon, Sam's entire team from the Capitol descended on her spacious house like a swarm of insects. She found herself bathed, plucked, and made up by her three preparation specialists, a feisty Capitol group made of one orange-skinned man, Venetius, and two hyperactive young women – the squat, strawberry-hair Rana, and the forest green-tattooed Hippia. Although they weren't bad people, Sam found herself feeling detached and resentful as they reworked her from a simple girl in District 10 into a styled icon.

Nihlus played on her mind. That _had _been him watching Jake and her in the morning on the hill. What did he want? Had she said too much about the Capitol and their eyes on her? The enigmatic man with the complex philosophizing had only told her to never speak of him – but would that go for her thoughts on the Capitol as a whole?

The last thing she wanted to see were reminders of the Games, and unfortunately for her, that was all that surrounded her.

District 10's eccentric Capitol escort, Augusta, arrived with her usual fanfare. She'd transitioned her hair from its former lemon yellow to an equally-bold and painful lime green. Sam didn't have the heart to tell her it made her look like the lead item in a traveling freak show.

"Can't dawdle everyone," Augusta chirped as Sam at last escaped her preparation team. "Tight day today. The cameras will be waiting at the station."

Finally, someone Sam didn't mind seeing showed up. Agrippa, her stylist, entered in a simple sleeveless padded vest and pant combo. Besides his unique body art, he appeared plain compared to the rest of the crew. She gave Agrippa a big hug, nestling in his well-built body.

"You…changed," Sam remarked, noticing his complex tattoos.

"Decided it was appropriate," he smiled. "Given that I have a victor."

The last time Sam had seen the man, his body had worn a visage of District 4 – complete with darkening depths of the ocean emerging into clear water and a sandy beach that stretched from ankle to neck. Now he'd moved in a different direction: District 10. Sam couldn't see much of his body from his cold weather clothes, but it was clear he'd drawn himself with the open prairie grass in mind. White puffs of summer clouds dotted his neck, with a sky blue hue patterned on his biceps. His arms extended down into a brown horizon and green fields, dotted by gray gusts of wind that he had patterned in just such a way that they tricked Sam's eyes into appearing as if they were moving.

"It's beautiful," Sam exclaimed. "But it's a little too snowy now for that to be real."

"A shame we don't do this tour in the summer," Agrippa admitted, studying the work of his prep team on her. "But it doesn't seemed to have affected you too badly."

He finished their work on her, giving Sam a warm forum blue coat that tapered off at the waist, a pair of thin boots that would just keep out the snow, and a long gold scarf. Sam was no fashion attendant, but even she had to admit that Agrippa did a masterful job at design.

"We need to work on your talent, while we're talking," Agrippa added.

Sam hadn't even thought about that. Although every victor performed a "talent" – their hobby and passion now that they had no need to work at whatever their district specialized in – she had never considered herself much of a connoisseur of art. Flower arranging, painting, fashion; none of these things had ever interested her, and her proficiency in them was as close to nil as possible. Raising animals that would get turned into processed beef wasn't exactly a suitable option.

"I don't really have…talent," Sam shrugged. "I mean, I can scoop cow poop."

Agrippa made a face. "That'd do pretty well. Art, design? Singing? Anything?"

Sam blushed. District 10 was musically inclined through song; she had often heard ranch hands trading lyrics as they worked shoveling hay or cleaning stables in her father's barns. She'd picked up well on their vocal talents, developing her own voice over time – but it was not something she felt like sharing, certainly not to a Capitol audience.

"I…dunno if that would be a good idea," she attempted.

"We'll work on it," Agrippa assured her as Augusta returned.

"I hope you're done, Agrippa," Augusta chided. "Crews are outside already. Time to go, everyone."

Augusta ended up driving everyone like a taskmaster for the rest of the day, herding Sam, Agrippa, and the rest from place to place. A shot in the Victor's Village with Dallas and Cheyenne led to goodbyes at the town square, with a final shot at the train station following. Sam quickly found herself wondering how anybody at the Capitol aspired to be famous with this kind of omnipresent attention around every corner.

Before she knew it, Sam found herself watching District 10's snow-laced fields whisked away behind the speed of the sleek silver greyhound that was her train. A brisk snow came in with the departure, coating the windows in a frosty sheen. Sam wanted to enjoy the accommodations of the train – the blue velvet-lined walls, the gleaming silver tableware, the cherry wood furniture and the crystal lights – yet she only found herself dreading what came on the trip. Even the scrumptious foods at dinner, ranging from small pickled fish to fresh leafy vegetables to pieces of lamb done just right, simply spoke noxious things to her. Only tomorrow she'd be in District 12, facing down not just a district that had lost both its tributes because of her victory, but Storm's family as well. The pain it would bring her would be unbearable; the memories acute.

Cheyenne took great pleasure through the night to insult anything she laid her eyes on. Having already served as a mentor on Dallas's tour three years after her own, this was familiar territory. Augusta received the worst of her lambasting, but she veered into everything from Sam's house to Dallas's hair. She took particular care to deconstruct how pointless it was to even bother with traveling to any districts besides 1, 2, and 4 – so that, in her words, "they'd get their nose rubbed in their failure."

Sam neglected to mention that it hardly mattered when they won nearly every year. Cheyenne's shift from smoking cigarettes to drinking copious amounts of beer had ended up an unwelcome change.

The showers in her room provided Sam with her first respite since talking with Jake on the hill. Although she had her own now in her new house, the Capitol's plethora of settings, shampoos, and scents always intrigued her. After spending nearly forty-five minutes in the shower mixing and matching smells and bubbles, Sam privately wondered if "taking showers" would make a good talent.

Snow rained down heavily in the dark plains outside as Sam sat idle in her room. The scene was almost peaceful; idyllic in a weird way. Far off was somewhere called District 12, where Storm's body laid at rest under a frozen earth. Sam didn't want to think about it, but the thoughts persisted in her head.

She got up, pulling her warm night robe around her and stepping out into the dark hall. It was an eerily familiar thing; she'd done the same thing on the ride to the Capitol before the Games when she couldn't sleep, but the bedroom car simply didn't provide what she needed. As Sam made her way past several rooms and to the final car in the train, she found her spot.

No stars shone out from the cloudy snowing sky over the transparent ceiling of the viewing car, but Sam felt at ease simply returning to the place where she'd made her peace before the Games. Plush couches and chairs let her sprawl out under the inky darkness of the night sky, surrounded only by a feeling of emptiness that matched the one inside her.

"I'm sorry Storm," she whispered to the sky. "You should be here. Wherever home is…I hope you've found it."

Sam felt compelled to do more in her privacy. Songs in District 10 were often lively affairs accompanied by numerous vocalists and occasionally a simple stringed instrument, but her voice alone would have to do. As if tempted by the stars behind the field of clouds in the sky, Sam took a breath and opened her mouth.

"_Out on the fields years ago, I saw you standing all aglow,_

_My heart couldn't stop to slow when you spoke my name;_

_The two of us made quite a pair, living on love without a prayer,_

_Your hand ran soft through my hair, like a picture in a frame._

"_Now you're gone and I'm alone, the cold sinks down straight to the bone,_

_And my heart's frozen to a stone, without you by my side;_

_I find myself crying out for your voice, for just a spark I'd rejoice,_

_I'm wondering if I ever had a choice to fall into this divide._

"_When I remember you, I think about what we were,_

_You were my rock, I was your flower;_

_Funny how the best of times haunts you through the night,_

_Now you've gone away and forever out of sight."_

Sam hummed her way through a second refrain and sang the chorus – the last group of four lines – again. She'd heard one of the ranch hands, a young sandy-haired man named Rico she still talked to on occasion, sing it about his girlfriend who had left him. She'd always thought he'd meant she'd dumped him and moved on, and had always attributed the song about broken love. Only a few months before she had been Reaped into the Games did she learn Rico's girl had passed away. The song had always been about death of a loved one to him; not something he could control. After her own experiences in the arena, the song hit Sam with renewed force.

"Agrippa was right about you."

Sam turned her head quickly at the voice. Standing in the dark at the front of the viewing car stood Dallas, adorned in a white robe that stretched from neck to knee. He leaned against the door frame, watching her with a paternal smile and eyes that shone even with the wintery weather outside.

"I…were you there the whole time?" Sam stammered.

"Just the last part," Dallas said. "Maybe you're no good at any of the other common talents, but you've got a beautiful voice."

He sat down across from her on the couch, staring out at the sky: "You could go easy on the shower scents though…I could smell it down the hall. It's like a zoo of fragrances in here."

"Oh, thanks," Sam said. "I don't know what a zoo is supposed to smell like."

"I don't know either. I'd just go with _one_ shampoo next time, Sam," he recommended.

Mentor and victor sat for a long time under the cloudy sky, staring up and sharing the moment. Sam felt the urge gnawing at her – her fears of loss of control and loved ones desperate for advice. Months of holding back from telling anyone of what churned in her emotional melting pot boiled out just enough for her to pose a question.

"Dallas?" she asked. "When you were a victor…I mean, I guess you still are, but right after you'd won…how did you deal with it?"

"You mean having to have killed people?" he looked for clarification.

"Yeah, and just…with everything focusing on you. It's like you can't get anything to yourself."

Dallas rubbed a hand through his hair, considering the question. "To be honest with you, Sam, I'm probably not the best person to ask. Those were better days for me. When I got home, I had someone waiting for me, someone to believe in. That took away everything bad. I know you and the boy from District 12 were close in the arena; between that and your bad experience with the girl from District 1, I know it's got to hurt."

Sam curled her knees to her chest. "Yeah…it was better then than now?"

"It was," Dallas nodded. He rubbed his eyes before continuing, wiping tired thoughts from the past away: "No offense to you. But back then, my life was good. That was before it all crumbled; something I haven't really shared about and you probably deserve to know. My someone – his name was Odessa – and I lived a good life together after the Games. Five years, got married, figured we'd adopt a kid from the district home. The Capitol never really showed much interest in me; it was always just go mentor for a year, deal with it, and then be back home with my husband. The year of the 86th Games, you were probably too young to remember it, a spat of really bad flu ran through the district. Odessa came down with it and it was a whirlwind: one day he was fine, and ten days later he was gone."

"It was like everything I had got pulled away right then. Every bit of future, every bit of hope. I felt despondent. It was actually Cheyenne who pulled me back into reality. She directed my feelings into mentoring, despite us never winning anything. She got me back to finding a passion, which was trying to someday get somebody through as a victor. If I couldn't have my husband back, at least I could give a chance to a tribute to have a better life. Turned out to be you. I'll never give Cheyenne back enough for what she gave me; she re-invented me when I thought I would keep falling forever. She may seem like an ass when you talk to her, but her intentions are as good as any of us."

"I don't want to say some cliché line, Sam," Dallas concluded. "But things get better, even if it takes time and going through hell first. It may look bleak to you now, and you may think you're never going to find something good again. But one day you will. You just have to keep putting a foot forward until then and trust those who have faith in you."

Sam didn't have words to reply. Dallas had bared everything he had emotionally to her; told her something she doubted he'd told almost anyone else. Compared to him, her problems seemed trivial…and in his eyes, she _was_ something. No matter what she felt, someone at least had eyes on her for a good reason, rather than to use as a tool.

The two didn't speak again; both simply fell asleep under the sky. Nothing more needed to be said.


	5. District 12

_**A/N: I apologize in advance, Gale fans. Really not gonna like me after this one.  
**_

* * *

An ugly pallor hung over District 12.

The open prairie this was certainly not; only the occasional clearing of a meadow or lake broke up the monotony of dead forest that stretched on seemingly forever. The gray sky and snowy boughs of the trees merged into a bland portrait devoid of color; to Sam, the place came across as lifeless. It was as if a great artist had decided his work had failed, opting to clear the canvas of everything while leaving only waste behind. Whatever Sam had felt about Panem and the districts, 12 indicated that life wasn't good everywhere.

"Look at this place," Cheyenne complained over breakfast as the train began to slow its arrival, pulling towards the station. "It's like the Capitol hates coal miners. The rest of us do too, but hey. We don't legislate."

"What's wrong with mining coal?" Sam asked defensively.

"The same thing that's wrong with you," Cheyenne said in her typical morning mood. "It's boring."

"Maybe so, but _useful_," Augusta chided. "Why, without District 12, we'd have to find so many alternative ways to generate our power. It's vital to keeping everything running. Every piece has a part to play."

"So what part do you play?" Cheyenne leaned over the table at her with a mouth full of croissant. "Fashionista who keeps me somewhere between entertained and annoyed? What a great equilibrium. I suppose next I'm gonna get my own psychotherapist."

Sam found herself struggling to pick sides between the two, so she said nothing in exchange. Escort and mentor continued bantering all the way into the station – lined with cameras and no one else. Sam had seen only a few residents on the snow-lined streets of the cold, gray districts, their eyes full of desperation and hopelessness. This was not a happy place.

A waiting platoon of Peacekeepers escorted her, Agrippa, Augusta, her prep team, and the two mentors into a long car, cascading onto the empty street like a bird alone in winter. District 12 bore an unusual sense of emptiness altogether; the gray hovels that made up homes seemed empty and deserted; the paths and walkways worn and tired. Sam felt like an unwanted presence in this pristine yet impoverished place of loneliness and despair.

"Hardly a warm welcome," Augusta sniffed as they drove towards the place of Sam's honoring and speech, the town square and Hall of Justice. "It's like they don't even want us."

"What a novel concept!" Sam didn't have to wonder who said that.

The gray skies over an equally gray and tepid square made Sam's bright red dress stand out obnoxiously. Citizens of District 12 had begun to file into the square – a mandatory thing, although they no doubt wanted to be anywhere else – and Sam immediately felt herself wishing to be gone from this forlorn district as fast as possible. Storm's words about having nothing more to live for hammered home now; what kind of future existed in such a desolate place? Years in what seemed less like a home and more like a concentration camp was a prison sentence, not a future.

Maybe death wasn't so bad, after all.

"Places, everyone," Augusta smiled as the car opened to the Hall, happy to finally have respite from Cheyenne. "So exciting."

"Remember," Dallas leaned over at Sam as they entered the dilapidated building. "Just stick to the script and keep cool. Twelve hours and we'll be out of here."

Sam didn't like that advice one bit. If Dallas didn't like the thought of visiting the districts, how bad would it be for her facing Storm's family?

The Hall of Justice tried its best inside to give off a warm demeanor, but to Sam it simply reflected the same lifelessness as the rest of the district. Pastel reds and yellows patterned barren walls devoid of life and vibrancy. As Peacekeepers hurried the crew along towards the front gate of the hall and the main attraction, Sam felt uneasy.

"Try to look happy," Agrippa re-assured her as the doors to the front façade opened. "At least fake it."

Polite applause and a ferociously cold wind greeted Sam's formal presentation to District 12. She feigned delight and appreciation, taking small, measured steps towards the podium that an elderly mayor halfheartedly smiled from. Damning eyes came from below – not just from the district, but from the extended family of the girl tribute Sam had never known. She'd understood just enough about the girl from Storm's description to find her average and unremarkable; Fresco's sword had ended her life prematurely. Six siblings ranging from toddlers to a boy in his early twenties and two smoldering parents cast gray eyes up at her that spoke only of rage and repressed anger. There would be no forgiveness from them to her, no matter who had killed their daughter.

_I knew it,_ Sam thought. _Every district it's going to be this way. I'm standing here, they're not._

Storm's family was a far cry.

Rather than saddened children and angry parents, only a single soul stood at the platform. A man in his forties with the same gray eyes and black hair of Storm hunched dejectedly, gazing up only with regret and loss. There was none of the aggression and spite of the girl's family in those eyes; simply the look of a man who had seen far too many deaths in his life.

To Sam, that was infinitely worse than the anger.

The mayor gave a short and soulless speech in her honor, with the presentation of a plaque and a disheartening floral bouquet. Sam had little to say outside her stock pre-made speech – all the words she wanted to say to Storm refused to come out when faced down by a thousand accusatory faces and ten times as many without a hope in the world. There was nothing to gain here by appealing to hearts and minds; Sam would forever be an enemy in this desolate waste. Just another product of the Capitol that had stolen two more of their children in an everlasting cycle.

Augusta and the Peacekeepers ushered her from the tepid affair into the night, exchanging the wintery dress for a silver evening gown and a fresh coat of makeup. Sam felt like a marionette pushed from one thing to another, guided by the strings of some puppeteer who cared only for appearance's sake. The lifelessness of District 12 and the latent hostility of its people had sucked what little energy she had out of her, leaving her a shell to be pushed towards an uneasy honorary supper.

Halfway through the evening meal, she needed to get out.

"I'm sorry, I need to use the restroom," Sam excused herself.

She had no intention of doing so, but it made for a convenient and unquestionable dismissal. Dallas came after her within a minute, finding her slumped against a wall and lolling her head back against the plaster.

"You okay?" he asked carefully.

"I need…I need fresh air," Sam gasped. "I can't stay in here. I don't feel right."

Dallas peered about for onlookers before pointing her in the right direction. "Next right there's a door. It'll take you outside…just don't be gone too long. I can't say you're in the bathroom forever."

Sam nodded gratefully, slinking off down the hall. The walls closed around her as she struggled to get to the door, wishing to put all this behind her. How was this only the first district? To have to go through ten more things like this…it seemed unbearable to Sam. She wouldn't have to face down memories of Storm, certainly, but simply seeing the eyes of a district who had lost children because of her life came across as something she could not do.

The cold air of the outdoors came as a welcome friend as she opened the door to the night.

"I thought you'd come out."

Sam rebounded at the noise, glancing about fearfully. Was the Capitol even _here_, ensuring she didn't deviate from their plans?

"Hello?" she offered.

"Relax," the voice came from behind her. "I'm just here to talk. Or maybe vent."

Sam turned to find a tall male figure resting up against the dark wall of the building. Closer inspection brought a new source of terror.

"You're…" she tried to form the right words. "You're Storm's father, right? I saw you earlier."

"Yeah," the shadowy man replied, his face staring off into the black of the night. "Yeah, I am. My name's Gale. Gale Hawthorne. My son was my only real family left, outside of my brother who's more preoccupied with being a _victor_ than he is with the rest of the district's well-being."

"Mister Hawthorne, I'm so sorry," Sam attempted. "I know-"

"Don't," Gale interrupted bitterly, his voice tinged with regret. "I don't need your apologies. The Capitol's already taken everything from me; I don't need to add your words of sympathy as insult to injury. I'm not going to mince words. I don't really like you, Sam. Your being here means my son's not. He died alongside you. I can't simply toss that aside and forgive you for his death; for the last little bit the Capitol could strip away from me. But…"

Sam folded her hands together, toying with the fabric of her gown. She should have expected Storm's father to be this way. Storm himself had told her his family had been reduced to virtually nothing by a number of events, ending with disease that had wiped out his sister and mother. Still, hearing the gravelly anger directed at her by his father stung her in the deepest recesses of her heart.

"I don't know _why_ I don't like you so much," Gale said. "Storm never really had much going for him. I guess he liked you; I should be happy he got the chance to have a little joy in his last days and to die with his spirit intact. I'm glad he was able to have a little love in his life, but that won't bring him back. Tell me...what was between you two?"

A shred of light hit Gale's face, and Sam was taken aback by how much she could see Storm in the contours of his angular face. The eyes and hair were identical up close; the strong yet passionate emotions seemed to rage forth from high cheekbones and a pointed chin. Where Storm had reflected fight, however, Gale only showed defeat.

"He, um," Sam didn't want to tread across this topic with someone who clearly blamed her for the loss of his son, looking away towards the dark trees. "He…saved my life. More than once. He and Gannet – the girl from District 4 who was with us – made me still feel like I had something in the arena. I'm sorry Mister Hawthorne, I've missed him a lot since then and thought about what I could have done and didn't. If I could have done something to bring him out of the Games with me, I would have. He didn't want me to be hurt, though. He was a better person than me. He had something to fight for."

Gale nodded solemnly. "Maybe I believe you. Maybe not. Maybe it's just the lines of bullshit the Capitol's fed me for the last twenty-odd years that culminated in this. This…now that I get to live in this jail of a coal mine, alone with thoughts and memories for the rest of my life. You won't understand. It's not something you can see until you lose everything. Until you're left with just yourself and everyone you've loved is long gone."

Sam felt defensive suddenly, a touch of resentment impeding in her emotions. "I lost him too. I lost a friend who cared about me. Who died for me."

Gale laughed without heart, raising his head and peering away. "You know, I never really loved his mother. Her name was Madge, the daughter of the old mayor who gave you the pretty speech earlier today. She was nice and she cared for us all; helped me raise Storm and his sister Zephyr. When she and my daughter passed away…I didn't even react that badly. I didn't have the pain I felt now, or the pain I felt a long time ago."

"You see, Sam," he continued, oblivious to her thoughts and caught up in a whirlpool of broken dreams. "The Capitol started chipping away at me long before I even had Storm. It's not just this pen they lock us in and tell us to unearth coal as prisoners. Maybe I even could have lived in that if things had just swung the right way. When I was still your age, I experienced that love you claimed to have had in the arena as well, but for _years_. Her name was Katniss; Katniss Everdeen. Met her out in the woods when I was only fourteen, and we blossomed for a while after that. I thought we had a future together – stupid, huh? There's no future in these hopeless places."

"I never got the chance to tell her I loved her. The _Capitol_ Reaped her into the 74th Games, way before you were born. I watched her every move on the screens holding onto hope that she could win and we could be happy together. I watched her _fall _for the boy tribute from our district, a piggish kid from the town bakery named Mellark. I got to watch them kiss for all of Panem to see during the Games; got to see her break my heart. And then? Then I got to see her killed brutally by the kid who would go on to win the whole damn thing at the climax of the song-and-dance – and there was _nothing I could do about it. _Maybe you'll be lucky enough to meet Thresh when you go to the Capitol for these upcoming Games. When you do, send him my regards. Give him my thanks for killing off the only girl I could have ever loved. I hope he's doing fine as another lapdog of the Capitol…just like how you'll turn out."

"Don't tell me you're sorry," Gale spat on the ground. "You don't even know what sorry is yet. If by some miracle you don't end up like all those sadistic Capitol types, maybe then you'll lose enough to know what sorry's like. I can tell you; there's only two constants in this world. There's loss, and there's control – through less than noble means. One leads to the other. You're going to get involved in one of them. Then you can talk to me about losing someone."

Sam no longer felt sorry or depressed for the man. Instead, she felt only simmering anger. All that loss, and all he could talk about was something that had happened over two decades ago? And just after losing his son – the same son who had confessed he had little to look out for, but found a spark in her?

"How…how _dare_ you?" Sam quivered, a fire rising in her gut. "Storm died like a hero. He saved me from dying. He gave his life so I could be here – and all you can think about is…is some _girl_ who died twenty-five years ago? You're his father and you don't even _care_ about him!"

"_That's because he's dead!_" Gale exploded at her, his index finger pointed at her face. "He's dead because of you! Without you he could be here right now – not killed off by the Capitol like twenty-three other forgotten kids a year! Just like Katniss. You think you're so _God damned special_ because Storm said something that made you happy and you got out with your life. You think you understand everything. You see _nothing!_ You have _no idea _what it's like!"

He got off the wall in a huff, turning to leave. "You're just another monster that the Capitol's pumped out to stick us under their heel. I hope your district sees you for what you are when you come tromping back there in celebration."

Gale walked away into the darkness, leaving Sam holding back a tide of anger. She had had enough of District 12. Any district that chose to embroil itself in the miseries of the past rather than trying to grab hold of what little beauty there was in life was not a place she had any desire to spend another minute in.

Maybe Storm was better off dead.


	6. Facing the Tides

Faces merged together as Sam found herself caught up in a stream of districts, one after the next. Guilt-casting eyes of the loved ones of the deceased damned her from their pulpits as she tried her best to placate simmering resentment with her speeches. From the fruit vineyards and orchards of District 11 to the golden grain farms of District 9, from the towering deciduous forests of 7 to the expansive solar power plants of 5, Sam found herself cast in a very different role than she'd ever wanted: the villain.

Each train ride between places forced a new round of imagining what sort of pain Sam would feel when she confronted a new group of sufferers for a day. Sometimes it was shock, as was the case when the mayor of District 6 not-so-subtly implied Sam was a brutal murderer (likely brought along by Troop's incendiary death early in the Games.) Other times it was a simple emptiness, like it was when she stared into the vapid eyes of Kevlar's mother in the smog-choked district 8. That entire day had been an affair to forget, caught up between snarling factories and down-trodden laborers. Sam began to question whether District 10 was truly better off than most of Panem, despite its high poverty levels and enormous quantities of tesserae taken.

_You're not poor_, a voice in her head reminded her. _You don't know how bad the home can be_.

Certainly the butchers and dairy producers couldn't enjoy the same openness of the prairie as she could on the ranch, Sam figured. Still – it had to beat the cramped and desolate conditions of the likes of District 8, or the aerial security drones and flamethrower-toting Peacekeepers of 11. That didn't speak of pain and melancholy; it spoke of a concentration camp.

_Just like District 12…_

Sam almost looked forward to reaching District 4, despite the feelings she'd have to deal with confronting Gannet's family. At least it was wealthier, and the pervasiveness of poverty and hopelessness would end.

District 4 provided a new experience. Traveling westward from 5, the tree-lined forests that had existed seemingly ever since District 8 opened up to the coast. Ocean – something Sam had never seen before – gaped before the train as it skirted its way down the Pacific Rim. Blue water spread out to infinity from the rocky black shore, stretching Sam's imagination beyond the mere prairie grasses of District 10. She'd questioned openness during the tour (or lack thereof,) but this was entirely something new. Living here provided a sense of humanity's smallness; of what it was the Capitol controlled. People out here could really understand things better.

_Maybe that's why they're compliant_, Sam thought. _They don't have to deal with such serious repression_.

Confronting District 4 turned out to be much more difficult.

Standing on the podium before the Hall of Justice here in a strange and foreign land, Sam felt eyes from everywhere upon her. That was normal; every other district had done the same. The view out onto the shore plain was a nice change from the dense forests and ugly factories; seeing sand and salt water provided Sam with a novel chance to see Panem for all its subtleties. However, one pair of eyes unsettled her.

Cascade's family was a small one; only both parents and an older girl in her early twenties. They didn't bother Sam at all – given all the stares she'd received in the last few stops, their disgruntled expressions said little. She hadn't been the one to kill off Cascade, after all; besides, he'd been part of the group that sent Hadrian after her. The real problem was the other side of the square.

Gannet's family was immediately unsettling as Sam feigned a smile in response polite applause. Her parents were short and thin; given Gannet's portrayal of life here and her lack of typical Career training, Sam figured they weren't of the upper class. A skinny older brother, maybe nineteen, stood stoically – yet she could see the pain in his eyes as he tried to comfort a girl of maybe five or six years old, failing to hold back tears.

The worst stare came from a sister between them in age. A small girl, maybe ten or eleven years old with the same piercing green eyes and wavy brown hair as Gannet never let her gaze waver from Sam. She didn't show the same type of emotions as her family or let the tears fall freely. Something in her hit Sam heavily, however; maybe it was the stately way she carried herself, just like the tribute who had died on Hadrian's halberd in the arena. Maybe it was the eyes…the sea green eyes that spoke of a kaleidoscope of feelings hidden beneath a veneer of bravery.

Sam didn't want to return to the arena, didn't want to face down Gannet's ghost – but her sister, standing courageously for her fallen sibling, forced the memories to come roaring back.

"Thank you," she whispered to the crowd to begin her speech, struggling to think of what to say. She had the scripted reply in her mind that had worked for the last districts – but would that suffice?

"Thank you for your hospitality and your welcome," Sam pushed on. "I'm honored to be a victor; to represent the districts, not just my home of District 10 but all twelve of them, to Panem for the 98th Hunger Games. I'll forever cherish that success as I go on to my future as a victor, and I'd like to thank District 4 for the part it played in that journey."

_Fuck this. _

"Your two tributes were strong; they were brave, they fought for what they believed in," Sam started, but almost immediately veered off into a more personal take. "For the little time I got to know Cascade, he was a smart and dedicated tribute. He knew he had something to return to; he fought for a future he could create. I may not have been on the same side as him, but I'll forever respect the fire and passion from which he found his drive."

That was a lie, but Sam figured it'd do enough to placate some souls in District 4. It actually eased the angered expressions from Cascade's remaining family; silently, she wondered why she hadn't thought of more personal takes for a speech before.

"Gannet was my ally; my confidant, my friend," Sam moved on to the family she couldn't give enough condolences to. "I'm…disappointed I didn't get to know her longer. She may not have been the most physical tribute, the best, the most capable – but she was someone I could rely on; someone who stood up for herself in the type of times that would try anyone's heart. When I was beaten down and finished, she was there to bring me up. When I needed a shoulder to talk to and confess to, she was there to hear my words. She never gave up in the face of a challenge; she never gave in to any number of fears that we all faced. I know I can't bring her back to you all, but I hope what words I have can give some measure of peace. She was the very definition of what a great person is, and I miss her."

Sam wiped a tear from her blue eyes as the stoic girl from below looked on – giving the slightest impression of a smile. It'd have to do.

"Thank you, District 4," Sam sniffed and moved back into her scripted speech, but she couldn't take away what she'd already said now. "Thank you for everything."

With a round of applause greater than any she'd received thus far, Sam waved a hand, held back a storm of tears, and retreated through the Hall of Justice's doors.

The evening events in District 4 had the effect of turning around Sam's entire disposition. Rather than the icy, chilled affairs of the likes of District 6 and 9, 4's Mayor Atlantia was a jovial fellow in his late fifties. Former victors had been invited to the feast as well, providing Sam with a cadre of interesting people to talk to.

None more so than Finnick Odair.

"Sam, Sam, Sam," the bronze-haired man in his forties hadn't lost a shred of attractiveness and masculinity since his youthful days as a newly-minted victor. "You're just full of surprises."

Sam turned away from speaking to an aide of the Mayor, smoothing out a crease of her sky blue shimmering dress and giving Finnick a shy smile. "Surprises?"

"I don't think I've heard a speech that nice from another district's victor in a while," he remarked, tossing a cube of sugar in his hand like a baseball while eying her over. "Maybe it's just because Jetty was our last winner, sandwiched in between insufferable idiots from 1 and 2 who look more juiced than a coconut. Gets boring after hearing the seventh person talk about themselves, you know?"

"What's a coconut?" Sam asked, lost in his words.

"Oh boy. Dallas and I are going to have to fix you next year," he laughed. "Tell you what. I'll get you one during the next Games. Then you can find out for yourself."

Sam immediately liked Finnick. He held himself with a confident yet happy-go-lucky demeanor that betrayed a boyish attitude beneath his strong exterior. Rather than convey the typical arrogance and dismissiveness of a Career – the type that Cascade himself had been – Finnick gave off an air of humility and self-depreciating humor. Sam couldn't stop herself from laughing and having fun in his presence.

"Finnick!'

The man turned towards the announcement of his name as a middle aged woman with long brown hair and green eyes approached. Something seemed off about her to Sam – maybe it was her face, devoid of tells that clued her in to her feelings and emotional state. She walked almost nervously in a crowd that should have felt right at home.

"Sam, this is my wife," Finnick introduced the two. "Annie. Annie, I figure you know who Sam is."

"Hi," Sam smiled brightly, holding out a hand in welcome. "You're a victor too, right?"

"It's good to meet you, and yes," Annie shook her hand warmly – not too firm, but enough to imply a maternal greeting. "I'm sorry my husband is taking up all your time."

"I'm not really going anywhere," Sam shrugged. "It's like I'm drowning in people who want to say hello."

Immediately she saw she'd said the wrong thing. Annie bit her lower lip, staring off into an imperceptible distance before closing her eyes for a brief second. Finnick snatched up her hand, looking uncertainly between her and Sam.

"Well, it was…ah, good to meet you, Sam," Finnick sputtered, motioning to lead Annie off elsewhere in the mayoral estate where the evening party was held. "I'm sure we'll meet again next summer."

"Yes," Annie added before laughing strangely, an odd thing.

Sam bid a polite goodbye, but she felt unnerved. What had she said that had set Annie off so strangely – and furthermore, what was with her? It was like the woman had seen a ghost once Sam had tried to make a good-natured conversation piece. Surely District 4 wasn't like the prison districts; here they had boats and an ocean and the favor of the Capitol. If Annie herself had the good fortune to have Finnick as a husband – as well-meaning a man based on first appearances as anybody could hope for – what could be wrong?

The evening passed on fairly uneventfully for the next few hours as Sam was forced into schmoozing with nearly everyone in the room. Every person had something to say to the newest victor, whether a congratulations on victory to discussing strategy in the arena. Mayor Atlantia had taken a particular taste into Sam's skinning of a camel during the late stages of the Games, intrigued by her nonchalant descriptions of animal ranching and husbandly back in District 10 that to her seemed as natural as walking.

The most unsettling visitor came near the end of the event.

As the lights inside the mayoral mansion began to tone down with the evening, a faint and soft voice tinkled behind Sam. She had just looked to sample a few last courses of food when she turned to meet it.

"Hello."

Sam pivoted her head – and nearly jumped out of her dress in shock. Standing quiet and stately was Gannet's sister; the same one who had never let her eyes waver during the speech earlier. The young girl looked entirely under-dressed compared to the high society in the estate; a bland white dress made of far more utilitarian and durable fabric gave the impression of a girl belonging less at a formal dinner and more on the boats of the fishermen. Her eyes cut Sam's words off with the same sort of mystery that lay behind Gannet's; up close, they were haunting.

"Hi," Sam managed to say, trying to steel herself. Who had let her in? Better yet, how had she even managed to find this place and take the time to come seek out Sam herself? "You're Gannet's sister…right?"

"My name's River," the girl said. "Gannet was my older sister."

"That's a pretty name, River," Sam tried to cut off deep topics, but found such a thing inevitable. "I'm…I'm sorry about your sister. I wish I could say more; Gannet was a wonderful friend. I'm sure you're proud of how she fought."

"Mom couldn't get over it for a while when she came back," River replied, brutally honest. "I watched how you two were in the Games. She was always there for me."

Sam wanted to grab the girl in a hug immediately and tell her things would be alright. Already her bravery standing before the victor – who had emerged with her life partially because of Gannet's death – moved Sam to pushing back tears again. She didn't know how the girl had gotten here, but she really didn't care.

"She, um," Sam stammered. "I know. Gannet saved my life twice; she probably saved my sanity too. She's in my dreams now; all the other kids are. I wish I could do something to bring her back, but I can't. I can't. I'm sorry; I'd like nothing more than for her to be here."

"Annie invited me here," River diverted. "She's been stopping by our house ever since Gannet died. She knows my parents; told me that I'd feel better talking to you."

River fidgeted with her hair before continuing. "She's right. I cried a lot when Gannet died, but I can't do anything about it now. But you're not like the boys and girls who go into training and look down at those of us who fish. You're still nice. Gannet was worried about the boy you had as an ally, but she never worried about you. She trusted you. In the end, I think she really was happy to know you…and she did get to come back to the ocean one more time. She's on the shore right now."

Sam broke down into a torrent of tears, embracing the girl with both arms. "Oh River…I don't even know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything," River said, holding back her own emotions as Sam bawled all over her dress. "I just hope you can look at me like a friend; like she did with you."

Sam let go and nodded, her gaze locking with the green eyes of the little girl and repeating the line that had come to her in the arena."You'll always be a friend. Always."

* * *

_**A/N: Don't sleep on River, because she'll have a much, much bigger role to play [much] later. I say much later because when I said it was gonna be a trilogy, turns out I was lying. Probably gonna be six in this series. Anywayyyyyyy, lemme know your thoughts on this chapter, on District 4's crowd, on Finnick/Annie and/or River, or whatever sounds good.**_


	7. The Two Serpents

Sam slogged through District 1 and 2, averting her eyes from the furious faces of the families of Hadrian, Fresco, and Royal. The latter's messy death at the hands of a horrific swimming mutt – and just minutes away, if that, from victory, courtesy of Sam's injuries – made Sam anxious to the point of sickness while in District 1. All the flashy clothes, brilliant lights, and spectacular architecture of the Capitol's right hand showed her nothing but inhumanity hidden under a façade of glamor. District 1 didn't seem like a well-to-do place to live; it was a den of well-dressed snakes.

All roads led to the Capitol. Sam didn't want to think about confronting the raucous and shallow crowds of the mountain city again. No matter how many times Dallas, Agrippa, and Augusta consoled her about her appearances, Sam felt uneasiness about her last night there after the Games.

_Black, coal-like eyes stare out from his viper skull into my soul. I try to look away; try to see a lifeline in the crowd from the evil man who stands before me with the power to snuff out my life like an ant. I search for an escape from the promises of a broken future, yet all I see are vapid stares and gaping mouths of the clueless audience. Only a single pair of eyes give me any change, any deviation from the scene – and they are not a reprieve. Their electric blue spearheads are merely an alternative route to damnation._

She would have to face the President once more. She'd almost certainly have to face Gamesmaker Rex, as well –and neither was a pleasing prospect.

"Feels just like yesterday," Dallas mentioned to Sam as their train pulled in to the Capitol, approaching from the rising mountains of the west. "You never get comfortable here."

"Yesterday and forever," Sam gulped. "And for every year into it."

She would never be free from the Capitol now.

Numerous appearances before adoring crowds spoke only of the illusions of happiness in a place like this. Tens of thousands came out to watch Sam give out half-hearted thank-yous with a wave and a smile, cheering like a pack of hyenas leaning on her every word. Constantine Flickerman brought her before Panem on the stage before the Training Center, back where she'd first paraded before the nation aboard her chariot six months before. Now it all seemed too surreal to Sam; the fallacies of benevolence about this entire place threatened to suffocate her in its own crushing weight.

Still holding on to his mint green hair, Constantine did her no favors.

"Now Samantha," he waxed nostalgic through half the interview as she politely crossed her legs across from him. "We all fell in love with you during your win in the Games, but particularly with your connection with Storm Hawthorne. Have you…ever thought about him, now as a victor? How hard was it to go through his old home, knowing he wasn't there by your side?"

Sam bit her lip at the question, drawing her eyes away from the crowd that craved blood and drama. "It's been hard. I know…I know he'd be happy for me now."

"Well, we are _all_ proud of you, and happy to welcome you back here to the Capitol," Constantine purred. "But I think our good President is awaiting you now in his mansion – you have a party to attend tonight, young lady! Let's all have a round of applause for _your_ victor of the 98th Hunger Games, folks – Samantha Parker!"

Sam's gut dropped with the shouts of adoration from the crowd – the party in the presidential mansion, even alongside Dallas, Cheyenne, Agrippa and others, meant she'd finally be face-to-face with the most powerful man in Panem. He'd have whatever privacy he wanted – and the time to issue whatever ultimatums to her he wanted.

_Into the pit of vipers…_

The mansion had been entirely redecorated within its great walls for the event, with a star-studded nighttime ceiling pattern hanging over the entire ballroom that served as a main place of eat and socialization. Large couches in violet and red surrounded personal eating tables, with pools of strange fish and other small aquatic animals interspersed between them. Long, narrow host tables of brilliant wood lining the walls, decorated against a backdrop of floral plants and stiff, small trees that took away the entire feeling of being within the heart of a great city. To Sam, the mansion had seemingly been transformed into an amalgam of all the districts and their environments, mushed together into the closest any Capitol citizen would get to nature.

Of course, one district was missing: there was no long plain of grass and the green prairie here in the mansion; no open space on which to ride and herd the ranch cattle. This place was as far from District 10 as any on the planet.

"You should enjoy the food while you're here," Cheyenne mentioned to Sam as they entered. "They're usually too damn busy pushing us around during the actual thing in the summer. I'm gonna get drunk."

To Sam, however, the food brought up only sensory overload. A plethora of delicacies, enough to wage a nuclear war on her taste buds, lined the expansive hall. Pickled vegetables of types she didn't recognize in purple and green lay side-by-side with lentils, turnips, parsnips, and mushrooms. Stewed snails (Sam immediately felt repulsion at the thought of eating them) accompanied strange sea life, some of it spiky while others reflected sheens of scales. Roasted dormice and whole hares sat around the main mantle pieces of the enormous feast: a dozen black fish the size of Sam herself, two stuffed and slow-cooked bright, feathery birds with brilliant plumages, and sixteen whole pigs complete with entrails and heads.

_That's District 10's legacy here_, Sam thought to herself while inspecting the rows of never-ending food. _We make food for stupid parties. What a waste_.

"You're not _eating_, dear," Augusta's voice piped up from behind her. "_Please, _try to enjoy yourself. Our President puts this on in your honor."

Sam had no desire to talk to these people tonight – no matter how much Augusta and her team had come through for her. She did have questions, however: "Augusta…where…where does all this food end up going?"

"Oh, a lot gets thrown away," she waved off the question as if it was nothing. "No need for spoiled food, after all. But please – if you get full, the goblets over there have ipecac. Just make sure to use them in the bathroom – don't want a mess!"

She had no need for the clear fluid to make her vomit – all this waste was doing the trick. Sam figured this entire feast could probably feed the _entirety_ of District 12, and easily feed all the butcher and dairy families of District 10. Yet here it was spent on maybe four or six hundred Capitol citizens that milled in and out of the main hall, idly talking with one another about skin-deep topics and ignoring the travesty that was occurring on the food tables. Somewhere, families in the districts were starving because of this largess.

"I don't think I'm really hungry," Sam responded to Augusta.

"Don't tell me you're ill now!" the escort preened. "Come, come have a seat over here. At least say hello to some people!"

Augustua led Sam towards a circle of people standing about a thin man in his late thirties, sporting burgundy hair and a long, curled beard. He sat on a green couch next to one of the fish-filled pools, and seemed all too eager to meet the star of the night.

"Miss Parker, a _pleasure!_" the man cooed as Augusta dragged Sam along. "Just wonderful to finally meet you – and _congratulations_, of course. I'm sure you're eager to be in the Capitol; just wait, you'll be able to come back every year now!"

"Dear, this is Diocletian Sulla," Augusta introduced Sam to the man, fluffing her mane of lime-green hair up for effect. "He's the _personal_ assistant to our esteemed Head Gamesmaker – and might be the Head one day, too!"

"Can't count our chickens before they hatch, Augusta," Diocletian laughed after Sam gave a feeble greeting. "Ah, I believe you would, Miss Parker – chickens _do_ hatch, right? I assume they grow them in your district."

Sam couldn't believe this man. "Uh…yea, they lay eggs. They're birds."

"Of _course_, of course," Diocletian responded with inappropriately raucous laughter. "But here, _do_ try some of this – ah, roasted octopus, I believe, from District 4. You'll _love_ it."

He handed a skewer of the dish to Sam, who paused before opening her mouth to take a bite. The octopus piece seemed familiar…a purple chunk of sucker-coated flesh, powerful and tough-

_Wham!_ The aquatic mutt that had ended the 98th Hunger Games roared back into Sam's mind with a pounding, forcing her to shake her head for fear of being lost in the violent memories. _Octopus_ – so that's what it had been; at least, a heavily mutated version turned into some nightmarish mutt that'd never leave her alone now. She forced the bite down, nodding her approval while mentally choking on the thought of swallowing the relative of something that very nearly ended her life.

"Oh, it _looks_ like you have a visitor," Augusta broke in as a well-dressed man approached the group. He seemed far more diminutive than the rest of the party – Sam figured he wasn't a guest, but a worker.

"Miss Parker," the man bowed his head slightly, confirming her suspicions. "I have an invitation to you from President Octavian himself to join his private table away from the main hall. If you would kindly follow me…"

_Some invitation_, Sam thought. It was an invitation where the only choice was acceptance.

The usher led her away from the great hall, down a series of smaller passages that led to a great set of massive brown doors. A pair of paintings hung on either side – one of a great battle or other occasion of warfare underneath a shining cross in the sky; the other three simple lines – red, white, and blue. Sam found them odd, attributing them to nothing in Panem – but then again, who was she to judge the artistic tastes of the President? They clearly weren't on the same page as it was.

One simple knock sufficed for the usher, who stood back as he opened the doors: "Please, ma'am."

Sam entered the room with slow, cautious steps, unsure of what to find. Before her stood a great round table, rimmed with a number of high-backed oak chairs. A banner of Panem hung to her left wall; the seal of the Capitol to the right. Strangest hung on the oak wall straight ahead; an eagle, like the Capitol's own seal, yet strange and different. It seemed less angular and more curved, its talons gripping things she couldn't make out – one seemed to be holding arrows. This entire placed seemed out of place.

Worse things sat at the table, however.

To her left sat a stocky man dressed in a formal suit of brown, his hair short and touched with just a shade of red. He looked angry, enraged even – as if seeing Sam was the last thing on his agenda. Across from Sam sat a far more deadly foe – sporting the same black eyes that had bored holes into her soul after the Games, wearing a fitted suit of black and sporting a sharp-cut oily crop of black hair was the young President Octavian himself, his face looking all too pleased to see Sam's tension and fear before the great table of leaders.

The final filled seat held her greatest worry of all. In it the tall man with the gray hair and unnaturally electric blue eyes studied her every move like a falcon waiting to dive – Phaeston Rex.

"Samantha, _bienvenue_," Octavian spoke in heavily-accented words as he motioned for her to have a seat before turning attention to the usher. "Leave us."

The doors closed heavily behind Sam as she took a seat slowly, breathing heavily and glancing about the table.

"We are merely here as _friends_," Rex noted, reading her anticipation. "Go ahead and relax, Samantha."

"Of course, _bien sûr_," Octavian stuffed a bite of food in his mouth as two red-suited Avoxes came around to Sam, laying out a plate of food and pouring her a glass of red wine. "You most likely know my colleague and our Head Gamesmaker, Mister Rex. This over here is my administrative adviser and security liaison, Nero Andronicus."

The third member of the Capitol government nodded to Sam without a word, his face still a hardened gaze of steel.

"Please, help yourself," Octavian motioned to Sam. "I do love French wine. This is a _Chateau Montblanc_, eighteenth century by the calendar of the world before our own. Of course, such things are probably alien to you, my _victor_…history is not a subject we stress in schooling."

The President wiped his mouth with a napkin, continuing on without letting in a word. "I once executed a man by drowning him in wine. It was like…wiping my _ass_ with silk. So crass, yet so dignified. A quandary, don't you think?"

Sam felt herself grow stiff. Was that a threat? She barely had the courage to blink, let alone reply with the conceited laughter that left Nero's lips.

"And he finds it funny," Octavian smiled in Nero's direction. "Funny, yes, death and suffering. So it is to our audience here in the Capitol. _Amusement et les jeux_. Yet we all know it is more, do we not Samantha ? I am sure you do…thrown into a ring of life or death, your very fate hanging onto whether or not you have the stomach to kill…kill or be killed, that is nature's will. So says a very enlightened man long since dead, anyway. "

"Kill or be killed is only an _emotional_ methodology in the Games," Rex countered before Sam had a time to squeak out a response. "Logic says there are many more ways to achieve your goal…as Samantha here proved by forging alliances to achieve victory. Where there is only one desired outcome, there are many paths."

"Ah, your logic and numbers always at work," Octavian laughed. "So much more than the common man understands. That is what I get for hiring a scientist for a Head Gamesmaker – yet the ratings do not find that a bad move at all. Tell us, Samantha, we are dying to know…if you did it again, would you retrace your steps?"

Sam looked about nervously at the three faces staring down at her, fingering the napkin in her lap. Octavian's question terrified her – was there a right or wrong answer, especially after Rex had easily chosen to disagree with him ?

"I, uh," Sam stumbled. "I guess I would. I'm here, right?"

"Ah, she chooses you," Octavian chuckled, setting off fireworks of fear in Sam's stomach. "You may win this round, Mister Rex, but I will sway her to my side eventually. You and I will have fun, I think, Samantha. The next time you are here for the Games, of course."

"Won't I be helping my tributes?" Sam asked impulsively, immediately regretting posing a question.

"Of course not. For show, but only just," Octavian threw back the remainder of his glass's wine, holding it out to an Avox for more. "You must understand, Samantha, the Hunger Games are merely all in good fun. When you lose yourself in them and try to actually _work_, well then…that would be no fun. You see, you are here as a victor because of one chain of events that always goes around in a cycle – cause…and effect."

"The cause comes in with a material side," Octavian held up his now-full wine glass as if crafting a work of art. "This is the material by which the effect is crafted. The cause itself is a means to the effect – the second piece of causality. The third part is _why_ the means exist. The cause must be working for something – it is a law of nature. Finally, our last part of this unending cycle of cause and effect is what this effect will accomplish. After all, its existence is yet another cause – which will spurn another effect. And so and so on."

"Thus, there is no real reason for any of us to be caught up in such heavy thinking, now is there?" Octavian shrugged. "You could spend your whole life mentoring tributes, trying to cause a better effect, but if your cause only achieves death, then the effect is a negative one. Better, I think to let this great chain of being play its cards as they may fall…and _enjoy_ how they do. We cannot change the outcome, as it is – we all die. Indulge in the present rather than worrying about these little underlying ethical things such as a few tributes dying to satisfy an audience's want. Don't you think so, Samantha?"

Sam held her silence momentarily, wondering if the question was rhetorical. As Rex's eyes bored down, however, she felt motivated to speak: "I…shouldn't I be trying to help my district win?"

"You are an intriguing victor," Rex moved in as Octavian and Nero watched. "Tell me, Samantha...in your honest opinion, how much do you think your mentors guided you to victory?"

"Um," Sam was taken completely off guard by Rex's attacking inquiry. "I don't know, I guess a lot-"

"Close to none is a better approximation," Rex replied with his eyes like lightning, unblinking and firing. "I watched you during your private session. If it was up to me alone, I would have given you a nine or ten as a score. You had potential within yourself – it was skill and tactical advantage that gave you victory within the Games, along with the foresight to forge an alliance. That's not any outside help, regardless of how much you wish to believe that your allies carried you through. You…are a leader. Someone your compatriots flock to."

"Of course, it's easy to say you had help," Rex went on, lifting a glass of bourbon to his lips. "But from where? Certainly not from your mentors, as your friend Dallas struggled to find much traction without the help of Finnick Odair of District 4. Your other mentor never even lifted a hand to help you. Yet it was a beast – a creation of the Capitol – that saved you in the end. Do you think that was…an accident?"

Sam recoiled in her seat at the revelation, her blue eyes wide and staring.

"You fought ninety-nine percent of the way through the Games with intellect and the advantages it brings," Rex explained to another sip of bourbon. "Such a thing should not go unrewarded, especially in line with such a ghastly attacker as that female tribute from District 1. _Smarter _Games are a better Games – and you set the stones for such a change."

"Are you…" Sam responded, her voice trembling. "Are you saying…that was…that you killed off Royal intentionally?"

"So long to get the point," Nero grumbled in a thick voice, his first words since Sam had entered.

"Yet a valid point it is," Rex cut him off. "Like the work of a fine architect, the Games are a creation, Samantha – not something to be left to random chance. Certainly the opening acts and the meat of the competition are best left to let the dominoes fall as they may, yet action must _rise_ to a climax. What better way than for the intelligent, diminutive underdog in _love_ with the boy from District 12 to unseat the reigning district champions?"

"Mmm, your analytics at work everywhere," Octavian mused. "Soon the Games will be a math competition."

"But…but why me?" Sam stuttered. "I'm not special. I'm just a girl from District 10."

"The ghost in the machine, Samantha," Rex responded.

"_Oh non_, his 'ghost' again," Octavian mocked moaning in agony. "We delve from entertainment to philosophy in this room. There is too much wine to be drunk to worry about such things."

"I saw twenty-four tributes given to my Games," Rex ignored the President. "Maybe half had the heart to win. But what is the heart, really? Just an emotional cortex: the drive of chemicals spurned on by millions of years of animal evolution; urges for survival and the illogical constructs of a desperate mind clinging to life. Even your followers in the arena, Samantha…your friend from District 4, clinging to you with an attachment she craved. Or the boy who really _did_ love you, which you played perfectly for the audience and for him. All heart – all so naturally _human_ and animal expressions. There is no joy in watching such a thing win."

"Yet I saw only two tributes who beat back that gaping animal in all of us, that unwelcome ghost in the finely-tuned machine that an advanced, sapient human being should be," Rex concluded. "Consequently, these two tributes were the smartest and best competitors. They operated on strategic logic and tactical brilliance, rather than enraged expressions of emotion. Conveniently, they were also the last two tributes standing. One of them gave in to her cravings in the end…what a shame for her."

Sam paled. She had a flashback to Royal standing over her, yelling at the Capitol for interrupting her kill and snapping Sam's Achilles with her saber. She had prepared herself to torture Sam to death on that desert plain before the flooded gorge; to indulge in a sport of blood that would satisfy every hungry Capitol citizen watching. Yet she had committed a flaw, one that she hadn't even known existed. She'd given in to temptation.

Suddenly, Sam threw aside everything else Rex had said. He'd given her something far more important – a clue to bring whoever she was forced to mentor in this upcoming Games home safely.

_Play by his rules_.

"You…you liked me because I was…smarter?" Sam struggled for wording. "Because I wasn't like…like Hadrian and all them?"

"I don't think 'like' is the correct term," Rex shrugged. "Respected. You gave me a valuable piece to work with…one to change the Games from a random sport forever biased in the favor of tributes we all know receive special training to one where the only skill that separates humans from animals is the one that matters. Intelligence…logic. Together, Samantha, we'll create a better Games."

"Such a way with words," Octavian commented. "He's seducing you already, Samantha. This lecherous man."

"All in service to greater good," Rex smiled.

Sam saw a hint of something dangerous in his expression to the President that Octavian clearly missed. Rex wasn't letting on to something…somewhere deep in the hard-charging mind of the Head Gamesmaker was that same intelligence that Octavian flicked away with a lighthearted wave of his hand. There lay a strategy, staying one step ahead of the others in the room, even her. Octavian scared her with his grasp of power and ignorance of consequences – and rightfully so, given her status – yet it seemed to Sam that it was Rex alone who held the real power in the room.

He didn't look satisfied as only Head Gamesmaker, either. _What did he want from her?_


	8. Waking Games

Winter merged into spring back in District 10, melting the snow away and bringing forth rebirth. Even in March as new buds struggled to curl forth from the virgin earth, the retreat of gray skies and constant precipitation lifted Sam's thoughts away from the deceptive machinations of the Capitol's elite. Rex and Octavian had been content to leave her be after her time on the Victory Tour; since then, she'd worked to return everything back to a normal life. Bouts of depression and anxiety spurted their ugly heads from time to time, but the return of life to the prairie brought forth new spirits in Sam's soul.

Other things helped, as well.

As the animals of the ranches arose from their winter dormancy, Sam swung by her father's home - it had been her home up too until the Games, but having her own place in the Victor's Village now helped things immensely. Her father had never been a kind person, and despite her victory, he still saw her as more of a burden than an asset. Still, even a burden could help out with work.

Sam poked her head in through the door of the old wooden home, letting in the mid-morning sunshine on a clear day. Immediately her eye caught a foul sight: her father awake and more than alert, his feet up on a low-slung wooden dining table. John Parker's scraggly beard and messy hair over a muscular body created an untidy and rough first impression – a sharp contrast from the influence he held in District 10.

"What'chu doin' here?" he asked gruffly, eyes never meeting his daughter.

"I'm just gonna take one of the horses out, Daddy," Sam said, laying her riding hat on the table. "I was gonna offer to check the herd so you could help with the hands in the barns."

Her father scanned her up and down in seeing her for the first time in several weeks, unsure of whether or not to trust her intentions. "The hell you wanna do that for? Don'cha got…whatever y'all do now after you got fancy by winning to do?"

"Not really," Sam countered his inevitable complaints. "Is Jake around?"

"Yer brother's out," her father hissed. "You ain't gonna really check the herds, are ya? Yer gonna go off wit'cher friends."

Sam bit her lip. She hadn't expected him to see through her words that fast – though she shouldn't have been surprised. John Parker maintained his status heavily through commanding others on his ranch; keeping a balance between Peacekeeper oversight and leadership of lower-class ranch hands was a tricky business that he'd mastered with a keen mind for deciphering intents.

"It's the first day of Spring," Sam admitted. "I just wanted-"

"Yeah, well ya don't always get whatcha want," her father spat on the table. "Ya dumb sow. Yer piss-poor boyfriend probably figured that out years ago."

"Clay's not my _boyfriend_, Daddy."

"Ya keep tellin' yerself that," he said. "Make sure ya tell him I'll cut his arms off he gets any ideas too. You hangin' with damn poor trash gives me a bad name. Fine, go take a horse. If it doesn't come back yer payin' me for it."

"Thank _you_," Sam concluded exasperatingly, collecting her hat and trotting out the door. Just as much as the poor disliked the wealthy in District 10, Sam's father held an equal amount of contempt for the poor. He typically only associated with them when he absolutely had to in sending off grown livestock; Sam's friendship with Clay over the years had done nothing to endear his favor.

Sam rounded up her favorite ride on her father's ranch: a small brown Spanish Mustang she'd affectionately named Daisy. Daisy had little of the demeanor her name implied; she was a feisty horse that took to grunting and complaining at the slightest insult or disgrace. Sam had spent more than enough time breaking in the stubborn horse, but her efforts had paid off: most of the other ranch hands couldn't even get near the animal. To her, riding Daisy was second nature.

"C'mon," Sam hopped up on the horse's saddle, grabbing the reins and giving her a gentle kick. She silently offered thanks for living in District 10 – for all its negativity and remoteness, it offered unparalleled little moments that no other district likely enjoyed.

_Be thankful you're wealthy too,_ a voice in Sam's head said. _You and maybe five other families enjoy this_.

That was true, too. Sam figured she essentially lived a District 4 lifestyle in District 10, if Gannet's descriptions of the sea were anything to go by. Her sea was simply flat, grassy prairie.

Daisy strode over the plains effortlessly, quickly picking up pace and bringing Sam over Midland Hill and down towards the fence and the wood. She'd wanted to go back into the place of trees; while she'd told Clay and Clara she simply wanted to have a day with them (something disappearing altogether, given that Clay worked hard as a ranch hand for another family to bring in income, and Clara's own family owned land as well) but Sam wanted to also face down fears in the place. She hadn't been back since Nihlus had confronted her in winter, surrounded by snow – although she'd never seen him face-to-face since then, she'd always had nagging feelings of being watched.

Sam arrived first at the edge of the wood, taking time to tie Daisy's reins to a sturdy tree.

"You're here early."

Clay's voice drew Sam's attention as he trotted up on his own. No horse for him, naturally – only the wealthy had access to such things, and he was anything but.

"Hey," Sam greeted. "I, um, I'll send something home with you since you're taking your off-day of the week to be out here. I know you have all the other things-"

"Well I'm not gonna turn down a gift," Clay agreed. "But don't worry so much, Sammy. Better to take my day off here than listen to my parents complain. Working with the other hands the other six days is more fun than that."

"I feel bad, though," Sam persisted. "I mean, I don't even do anything, and you and Clara have to work – and even then you have to take tesserae."

"Nothing I can't handle," he waved away the concern. "As long as the ranch meets its quota, they pay us the same regardless of how many hours we work. Burnout makes bad employees, and then mistakes happen. They get that. Your dad probably does too. Besides, doesn't the Capitol make you do stuff for them?"

"I'm supposed to be _singing_," she answered sarcastically. "So says Dallas. It's a 'talent.' I think Cheyenne's is drinking, so I don't really get it."

"Oh yea?" he placed a hand on her shoulder, tilting his head to the side. "Why don't you sing for me, then?"

"Stop," she swatted him away playfully. "It's not like I'm having fun with it."

"Yeah, sure, eating your heart out and getting fancy train rides isn't fun."

"It's not!"

"I bet."

He shoved her with a cocky grin as two more pale horses rode up. Atop one sat Clara, her blonde hair down and swirling around her as she pulled her mount to a stop. The other horse held a tall, dusty-haired boy Sam didn't recognize. He was built nowhere near the stockiness of much of the district, just muscular enough to show that he had experience working somewhere. His skin lacked the rough coarseness of most ranch hands, to speak nothing of the dairy milkers or butchers.

"I'm not keeping you, am I?" Sam wanted to put away her guilt.

"You worry too much, Sam," Clara dismounted with a smile. "It's not gonna kill my dad if I take a day to do whatever. I think he'd be madder if I turned into some robot working every day and dying of exhaustion by twenty. Besides, we have money."

Clara never failed to miss overt statements like that. Sam found talking about her relative wealth around lesser-off people like Clay to be anxiety-inducing at best; Clara simply said whatever came to mind, consequences be damned. It'd garnered her a measure of begrudging respect in school that Sam had never found.

"And this," she indicated the boy, now just getting off his horse. "Is my cousin Cal. I don't think either of you have met him…he works too hard, so I dragged him out."

Clay gave off an obvious look of contempt. He'd been used to being the only male in their trio; the arrival of someone new threw a wrench into the system. Sam was considerably more open to his presence.

"Hi," she greeted brightly. "I'm Sam."

"Well I gotta know you," Cal returned the expression. "We were all just rooting for you back in the Hunger Games. Victor, huh? That's pretty special stuff."

"It's…nothing," Sam shrugged off the compliment, her face getting hot. "I just-"

"C'mon, let's go," Clay suggested with a twinge of frustration.

"And that's Clay," Clara interjected, turning sarcastic. "He's the friendly, cuddly one."

"We're just gonna get older standing around out here."

"Only you. You sound old already."

"Thanks, Clara."

The trees were alive with the sound of bird calls. Sam had always liked the wood in spring, after the dead rot of winter had worn away; life itself seemed to infect this place, turning it into a moving, living ecosystem. Now that she had more time on her hands than she knew what to do with, it felt good to get away from the lonely Victor's Village and back to a living, breathing world of energy and vibrancy. It certainly beat passing by the hungry, starving kids of the Slaughterhouse Ward, where the poorest residents – primarily butchers – eked out limited lives of disappointment. Sam always felt guilty walking through that area, never having understood what such life was like despite it being an ever-present reality in District 10. Butchers and meatpackers made up the largest single segment of workers by a mile, yet she'd never even bothered to get to know the child of one of those forlorn families.

The only time she would now would be during the Games – when they'd be sent off to die.

Clara chattered away to anybody who listened as the four came across a small clearing – a grassy field accompanied by a cool pool of water that stretched from the tree boundary to the edge of the electric fence. Sam had always wondered what crossing that forbidden line would be like, but risking a fatal shock was not a risk she wanted to take.

"It's nice to get back out here," Sam commented as Clay took the first steps into the water. "Beats being stuck up in the house all day."

"You come out here a lot?" Cal asked her as Clara joined Clay in the water. "I've never even been in these woods."

"Never?" Sam raised an eyebrow. "You need to have more fun. I'd have thought Clara would make you do stuff."

"Nah, she usually just bosses everyone around," he laughed nonchalantly. "But, I mean, between working on my uncle's ranch with her, and then we get the Reapings and the Games every year…you just get into a routine, you know? Miss out on stuff like this."

"You, uh," Sam said. "You don't have your names in a lot, do you?"

"Oh, no," he re-assured her. "I'm gonna be seventeen for this year's, so just in six times. It's nice having money, you know? Most kids don't."

"Yeah, I get that," Sam said with all too much truth. She found it strange momentarily that she primarily associated with people of her class in this wealth-divided district – was that simply another means of control by the Capitol that she'd never really looked at before? "I dunno though, I had my name in five times and got drawn."

"Yeah, but you won," Cal said with a hint of a smile. "So whoever you get this year has a leg up, don't you think?"

"Everybody has mentors."

"Old ones, or killers. You're the only genuine one I've seen since…ever, I guess."

Sam stared at a spot in the grass. This new boy – Cal – made her feel all sorts of strange things. She'd never really thought much about feelings before until Storm had entered her life in the Games; now she struggled with them on a daily basis. Yet these weren't bad feelings…they were good ones. Nervous ones, but good.

"I'm gonna go in," Sam nodded towards the water, breaking up the conversation.

"Oh yeah. Guess they're waiting on us," Cal looked towards Clay and Clara, who seemed to be doing anything but.

Sam spent the next few hours rediscovering the fun in life. She swam, splashed, and chatted with Cal, Clay, and Clara, genuinely noticing her spirits improving dramatically from the doldrums they'd been locked in during winter. The warmth of the spring day gave her enough confidence to try what she'd always avoided – after all, she was a victor.

"You see that big stick?" Sam indicated a large, pole-like piece of wood near the electric fence, just off the side of the lake. "You think it'll take my weight?"

"Yeah," Clay grunted. "Why?"

"I'm gonna go over the fence."

"Can't you get arrested for that?" Cal said.

"What are they gonna do?" Sam felt giddy at the prospect of finally breaking some rules after the Capitol had ground down on her since the Games. "I won their stupid Games. They have to deal with me now."

"Well don't shock yourself," Cal replied, earning a look of disgust from Clay behind his back.

"I'll be fine," Sam said, dragging herself out of the water and towards the stick.

She hefted the stick with both hands, looking for a good way to vault the fence. It wasn't high by any measure – only maybe seven feet off the ground, yet humming with electricity as it always did. She spotted a small depression and a pile of rocks a foot in front, figuring it'd have to do. With a running start, Sam held out the pole in front of her and planted it into the ground. She felt a rush of adrenaline – finally in a good way, washing away the old burst of emotions that had accompanied her back in the frenetic arena. She easily cleared the barbed wire, letting go of the wood as her head made it across and rolling to a landing on the other side of the fence.

Clara gave her an applause, shouting encouragements. Sam looked behind her – finally, for one little moment, _free_ from all the eyes that had been on her. Free from the shackles of having the President and Rex considering her every move; free from being shuttled around like a party animal to every district like back on the Tour. It would be a short and ultimately meaningless thing, but Sam felt as if she'd leaped over every obstacle holding her back in just one decisive action.

Quickly, it all rushed back.

The grass behind her hissed with movement, despite the lack of wind. She turned her head away from the trees, away from Clara and Clay shouting things at each other – and into undisturbed nature. Yet something was there.

"Why, it looks like you're breaking rules again!"

_Nihlus_.

Where was he? Sam couldn't see the huge man at all – he'd be hard to miss with that size – yet the very ground whispered with his accusatory words. Her eyes widened with the danger, glancing about in fear. She trotted back to the fence, grabbing the wooden stick and using it to vault back over and to the ground. Clara and Clay continued to argue out a discussion as Cal came over.

"You okay?" he asked as Sam slipped back into the pool, her eyes darting back at the fence. "You kinda froze over there."

"Yeah, I…" Sam paused, remembering Nihlus's words back in winter – _you will not speak of me_. Was he tempting her? "I was just thinking of something, that's all. Don't worry. I'm fine."

"Alright," he patted her shoulder lightly. "If you say so."

Clara and Clay looked to be near blows out in the deeper end of the pool.

"You're not her _dad_, relax," Clara was in the midst of saying, her words unhinged as usual. "You've been wound up all day."

"All I'm saying is that if Peacekeepers came out here and found us jumping over the damn fence, what do you think is gonna happen?" Clay demanded.

"Ask her yourself!"

Clay grabbed Sam by the arm: "Let's go have a chat, you and me."

"What?" she protested.

"C'mon."

Clay led her back into the wood, just far enough to be out of sight of Cal and Clara back at the pool. He looked about before setting his gaze on her, his face serious: "Sam, what has gotten into you?"

"What are you talking about?" she asked, confused by Nihlus's breathy words before and now Clay's about-face in attitude.

"You hurdling over the fence for one thing," Clay said. "Just a couple days ago you were fine, and now you're suddenly trying to just do whatever comes to mind?"

"You were fine coming out here," she defended. "You weren't complaining then."

"Look, Sam, I'm just looking out for you," Clay tried to explain. "What if someone sees you do something like that? What if they don't and you do something else? I don't know – don't let all that victor stuff go to your head, okay?"

"Why does it matter to _you_ what I do _myself_?" Sam fired back, nerves frayed by the drastic change of circumstances.

"Because I care about you!" Clay exclaimed, grabbing her arm. "I don't want you to go get dumb and get hurt or something! You know what it was like having to watch you back during the Games, all the stuff we had to watch you go through – and now that you're back, you're all over the place."

"Get off me," she threw his hand away. "You weren't like this when I said it was a bad idea to go see the old Head Peacekeeper get shot. And don't try to bring the arena into this. Is this because of that boy Clara brought with her? Because you've been acting really weird today, and now you bring up the Games when Storm –"

"_No_, Sam," Clay cut her off as soon as she mentioned his name. "I mean, I don't know. Whatever. Forget it. I've got some stuff I need to get back to…go tell Clara and that other _guy_ that I had to leave. I'll see you later."

Clay stormed away back into the woods, disappearing into the leafy trees. Sam shocked herself with her outbursts – all her energy of having fun had transformed into a fight-or-flight reflex as soon as she'd heard those words of danger. Clay's exacerbating of the situation had done nothing to calm her down, and he'd taken the brunt of her emotional outburst.

"What a shame; breaking his heart. You're quite the villain, Miss Parker."

Sam's head flew up at the gravelly words. Above her, perched in the trees like a leopard, was Nihlus.

"Surprised to see me?"


	9. Sculpting a Storm

Sam took an instinctive step back from Nihlus and nearly tripped over a tree root. He _had _been watching her all this time – who else would have known she'd be out here? Who would have found her, would have bothered to go tromping into the woods to dig up several teens doing little in the name of flaunting security (outside of her, of course?)

"I…" Sam felt fear hurtling up through her gut as she questioned Nihlus's next move. "I didn't mean anything, I swear. I was just trying-"

"Oh, I don't find fault for leaping the fence," Nihlus interrupted, stroking his thick chin and delving from predator to philosopher in the snap of a moment. "I…find this place they keep me in insufferable. I _hate_ these things called people and this district. This…_zoo_ they pen you in. Gawk at you. Try to poke and provoke just enough to force a reaction…for what? For _nothing_. That fence is just as purposeless as this district itself, a mere metaphor for the _ridiculousness_ of the entire system the Capitol perpetuates. Yet they want me…here. Watching."

"Why…why do you think that is?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Sam tried to steady the unstable, powerful man hunched in the tree.

"Well let me tell you," Nihlus cracked a joint in his neck, flexing muscles that bulged from beneath layers of rough skin. "They say I'm some 'security prototype,' that I have purpose to test out their covert espionage technology in the districts. You wonder why the Peacekeepers have calmed down – why nobody gets hanged, or put in the stocks? It's not just an evolution of the usually-lax attitudes of the district controllers in their petty game of autocracy, no…it's because I'm here, Miss Parker. Me. I'm supposed to be a pioneer for the Capitol leveraging a new fist of power over their districts…yet…I don't _want_ to be that. I don't _want_ to pretend to play a butcher in this…tick-ridden back country, relegated to a covert spy for the stinking _disease_ that is humanity. I am far more interested in…little things."

"In this twisted society, it is purpose that defines us, guides us, tells us we are right," Nihlus leaped out of the tree and bounded easily on his two trunk-like legs, rising up to tower above Sam by a full foot and change. "So I have decided that I have the only purpose that exists in this world – none. There is no purpose; thus, I am undefined. I therefore spend my time focusing on things that entertain and interest me when I'm not feigning agent for the Capitol – I watch little ants like you."

"I keep wondering why my Father finds you so intriguing. He, caught up in his mathematics that will guide humanity to a new golden age…yet another petty scheme without meaning; the lies of five pounds of gray matter - itself the result of an accident of natural selection and just as artificial as the words you spoke to your friend."

"Your father…" Sam put the pieces together. "The Head Gamesmaker?"

"I suppose father is a poor term," Nihlus fretted and raised his eyebrows. "He created me. Nothing more. Now I prefer to be his lurking Sword of Damocles, waiting to slash holes in his grandiose-yet-impotent plan of enlightenment. Maybe I do find you interesting, as well. Somehow you keep getting intertwined with the very people I _hate_ so much: those _schemers _in their towers in the Capitol. So pointless. Just like everything."

"How do you know about that?" Sam asked, shocked by his level of confidential knowledge. "You weren't even there in the Capitol."

"Location is a poor substitute for information," Nihlus corrected her. "And it is the latter I need. My Father built me as an information-gathering _tool_…yet now I serve only the universe's tug of entropy. I want nothing more than to be Oedipus, to kill my own Rex…and Octavian, and many more. Maybe _all_ of them. As Octavian and Rex square off to do battle, it's a perfect time to sneak in the only agenda that matters."

"Oh? Not what you were expecting?" he continued. "There is strife in the Capitol, Miss Parker. Soon either Octavian or Rex will lie dead – though preferably both, if I had my way."

"What are you trying to tell me?" Sam felt just assertive enough to make the demand in light of Nihlus's self-obsessed rants against the Capitol. "Why stalk me out, why follow me around?"

"Because _you_ are my one-way ticket to _them_," Nihlus poked his finger into Sam's stomach. "You've already signed on the dotted-line. My Father finds you so _enrapturing_ that he wants to use _you_ in his power play against Octavian. Consider the notice my gift to you. Octavian of course will see this, and find a way to use _you_ in order to hedge himself against my Father. And through it all, you are an unwilling participant…which makes you and I partners. Unwilling, forced into roles…you into these pointless Games that do nothing more than speed up entropy's march; me, into a weapon honed simply into further disgust for everything Panem is. We make quite a team already."

"I'm _not_ your teammate," Sam protested. "I'm _not_ getting into any of these…whatever things in the Capitol, even if you're telling the truth. I'm just a teenager, not a revolutionary. How would you even know? What if you're just lying to me to try and get me killed for…whatever reasons you have?"

"You say it, but you don't believe it," Nihlus nodded, more to himself than anything. "Because my Father has courted you in that room in the Capitol. Because Octavian has made his intentions very clear to you. Because all those words you heard…you _know _they are just the beginning. You, you…you who are everything I hate, everything human. You and your bubbling emotions, your twists and turns of passions, your everyday ups and downs, triumphs and failures that make you so disgustingly _wholesome _as you fight to find meaning in a meaningless world. My Father believes you are the computational machine like he is; Octavian believes he can turn you into his pawn and toy. Yet only I _know_ what you are, Miss Parker."

Nihlus leaned in over Sam, reaching out a colossal hand to weave her ponytail between his thumb and forefinger. "You're just _human_. So easily bent to someone's will…like mine. Mine, mine…my purposeless, undefined will."

"What makes you any different?" Sam countered. Nihlus looked human enough to her, after all – just larger.

With a bounding leap, Nihlus took off from the ground and settled in a tree branch eight feet above – an entirely inhuman physical feat that caught Sam off-guard.

"It's like my Father told you, Miss Parker," he laughed quietly. "A good architect sculpts his creation, whether that's the Hunger Games…or something else entirely. Humans aren't sculpted. I am. Don't slip up, now."

Nihlus bounced off out of sight, leaping like a lemur out of the tree despite his impressive muscular bulk. Sam felt cold inside – what did the strange man, now so clearly a creation of the Capitol (and concordantly, Rex) have in mind? She couldn't doubt his assessment of tension between Octavian and Rex. She'd seen it herself, judged the two to certainly not be friends, but latent enemies. Yet why did Nihlus rage with so much burning hate for the Capitol – and people in general? And how had he known everything that had gone on? It was like he was in her mind.

A chilling thought swept over her as she felt goosebumps sweep her skin despite the warm air. Rex could certainly make mutts as Head Gamesmaker – she'd learned that personally. Could he make one part human?

_Could he lose control of it?_

"Sam?"

Cal pushed some leaves out of his way, catching her lost in thought and shock.

"Is something wrong?"

Sam looked up, confused and hurt. She didn't know what to say, what to do – the Capitol already was dragging her deep into their mischievous games, and now Nihlus had dug her deeper into the ravine. She realized that for all the times she could lose herself in peace – like at the pool and with Clay, Clara, Jake, or others – she'd attracted all the wrong kinds of attention to her from terrible sources that wouldn't leave her until they died…or she did. For the simple matter of winning the Games with a modicum of intelligence, Sam had drawn herself into a dangerous trap.

"I, it's," Sam wouldn't implicate her newest friend in these dangers, even as she found herself desperate to talk. "Clay and I just had a difference of opinion. That's all. He's going home."

"He didn't…like…"

"No, no. No."

Sam brushed away the lie and walked slowly back towards the pool, where Clara had already begun changing back into her clothes.

"Did he just leave?" she exclaimed.

"Yeah," Sam replied, picking up her own garments and getting dressed. The urge to tell someone and get the feelings off her chest intensified, regardless of what Nihlus had said back in winter – it seemed now that Sam could do nothing to avoid the axe falling her way courtesy of the political infighting brewing off in the Capitol.

"I don't know what his problem is," Clara remarked. "We still have all day, though. Are you going home too?"

"I…" Sam hesitated. Clara was a talker, but she wasn't excruciatingly dumb enough to go blabbing about secrets of the Capitol. Furthermore, she wasn't idealistic enough to concoct dangerous plans, either – just the emotional shoulder she needed. "Look, Clara, can I talk to you privately?"

"Sure," she chirped. "Cal, go take the horses back. I'm gonna go home with Sam."

Her cousin agreed and departed, leaving the two girls departing the woods on their own. They rode Daisy up towards Midland Hill, where the warm currents of the mid-afternoon seemed less welcome and more ominous to Sam. Every off-key chirp of a bird or incessant whine of an insect unhinged her tangled nerves as she dismounted.

"I just need to get something off my chest," Sam said as she sat down in the soft grass of the hill, looking out over the prairie extending on for miles.

"Is this about Clay?" Clara asked. "I know you two are a little more than close and all but…did he hurt you or something?"

"No, it's not him," Sam sighed. "There's something following me, Clara. Something from the Capitol…something ever since I won the Games."

"Following you?"

"I guess some people in the Capitol liked how I won, or something…I met the President and the Head Gamesmaker during the Tour. Both of them are…they're _watching_ me. It's like they're trying to get me to do something; to start something or worse."

"You're just the most recent victor, Sam," Clara's expression showed sympathy, yet total confusion. "People will look at you until the next kid wins this year."

"No, it's not like that," Sam said with a pressure in her chest building. "It's like…it feels like there's a storm building and I'm supposed to take a side between people in the Capitol. And there's something here…here in District 10. Something's been following me ever since they replaced the Peacekeepers who were here. I heard him again today."

Clara's expressions morphed from confusion to frustration to outright mystery: "Him?"

_Shoot_, Sam thought. _I've said too much. _

"There's a man from the Capitol here not with the Peacekeepers," Sam said after looking around and assuring they were alone. "I don't know what he's supposed to be doing, but what he _is_ doing is watching me. That's all I know…I'm scared, and I don't know what to do or even why this is happening. I just turned sixteen; I'm not some…soldier or anything."

"Sam, it's probably just effects from the arena," Clara did her best to re-assure her friend. "I don't think anybody's gonna try and do anything to you. Everybody in Panem knows who you are now."

"It's not me, don't you see?" Sam complained frustratingly. "So they can't do anything to me physically. What if they hurt you, or Clay, or my brother? What if they push me just far enough to do what they want and leave me hanging?"

Sam put her head between her knees, punching the ground and letting out a sob. "I should have just _died_ in that arena; I should of let the mutts kill me or Royal kill me. Then none of this would be happening and you all could still be happy. Now I'm hurting everyone."

"No, listen to me," Clara interjected. "You're a good person, Sam. You're gonna be fine; we're gonna be fine. I know it's hard but you deserved to win, and now you can be whoever _you_ want to be – not whoever someone else wants you to be. You and I still have our entire futures ahead of us, okay? Years from now we'll be happy and still out here – nothing's gonna come get you or me."

Clara gave her a hug, holding Sam's tear-streaked face against her blonde hair. "Once this year's Games are over, let's go back down to the pond. You'll feel better then; maybe just the two of us. It'll be sunny and summer and we can just stay out there as long as we want."

Sam wanted to believe Clara – she wanted to believe everything would be alright, that she'd live out her life in District 10 and find happiness. Yet all she saw as she closed her eyes and buried her face in Clara's shoulder was Nihlus's predatory smile, warning of a whole host of unseen dangers lying just below the surface of things.

"_A good architect sculpts his creation…"_

Who was sculpting her?

* * *

_**A/N: Yeah, so Sam's kinda emotionally messed up right now with the fun Capitol hurricane brewing. Yes, the Nihlus/Sam arc is going somewhere, for those confused. He's a rather important character in the grand scheme of things.**_ _**Lemme know thoughts through nine chapters! Good, bad, shouts of "I can't believe you wax so much philosophical; where's the action you pretentious hack," reviews are always welcome!**_


	10. Deception

Spring passed through warm months and fattening herds of cattle without a reappearance of the Capitol in Sam's life. She still felt their eye on her going to sleep every night in her home in the Victor's Village. She began to regret telling Clara anything – after Nihlus's threat a season ago, would he inflict some new horror on her for breaking his rule?

Sam nearly forgot about the next iteration of the Hunger Games entirely, but the day of the Reaping for the 99th annual event came upon District 10 much too fast. Sunrise came about as Sam tried to avoid thinking about the two kids she'd have to lead to their inevitable deaths. Maybe she could pull out one – repeat the success of last year – but that would still be one death on her part. There was no winning as a victor.

Dallas came to her door early, just as she'd stepped out of her bath.

"Put on something nice," he said, looking about her downstairs kitchen. "We have to show up early."

"Early?" Sam asked. "I wanted to say goodbye to my friends before we leave."

"You'll have a little time before we have to get on the train, if they wait around," Dallas replied with a minimum of enthusiasm. He clearly wasn't enjoying the prospects of the day. "Assuming, you know…they aren't reaped."

Sam didn't want to think about that. Clara had virtually no chance, having not taken tesserae in her entire life and only having her name in six times as a seventeen year-old. Clay, on the other hand, would have his name in forty-nine times this year. The Lamar family included five kids and two parents – not a great combination for his chances of success. His older brother would have it even worse, with fifty-six slips given that each child of their family took full tesserae allotments to generate a little extra money by selling any surplus grain or oil. Sam didn't want to imagine the prospects of one of Clay's family – or Clay himself – ended up a tribute. It would be a nightmarish scenario that she'd never be able to get over if they died.

She donned a rather plain yellow dress and left her brown hair in her trademark ponytail, pausing just long enough to ensure she looked presentable for cameras. Cheyenne had already arrived at the door, looking anything but good and settling into her typical pissed-off-morning mood. The fact that they'd be at the Capitol in less than two days did nothing to make her more endearing.

"Why are you even coming?" Sam finally grew tired of her complaining as they walked through the Village towards the town square. "Don't only two victors have to come to mentor?"

"You're new," Cheyenne grunted. "Dallas and I are still the 'mentors' this year. You'll be paraded around and Constantine will have a ton of interviews. Same bullshit every year, like puking up dinner. Next year I'm staying right here and you two can have fun."

"Not even happy for the food?" Dallas offered.

"No. Hell no."

The dusty late spring streets of the district were full of dispirited parents, sullen-eyed children, and apathetic bachelors with little at stake today besides how much work they would have to do later. Many of the kids looked beyond underfed to Sam – and with the year-long food parcels from her victory expiring this month, they'd have to go with even less food now. The skinny, bony twelve year-olds from the Slaughterhouse District filing into the square to sign in and be led towards their pen seemed especially vulnerable. Sam silently hoped she didn't get one of them. They'd have no chance against a Career – or really anybody. Even Gannet had been more physically capable than that.

Sam wondered if Gannet's sister River was eligible this year – she had seemed even younger than the skinny twelve year-olds here in District 10, yet looks were deceiving. The girl had had enough moxie to approach her directly at the Victory Tour stop, and seemed to have her head on straight. The Games had a habit of reaping some of the best children every year, however…and to catch a relative of a former tribute would be all too tempting, especially one as high-profile as that with Sam's most recent victory. Already she could hear Constantine's voice interviewing her about her impressions of Gannet's sister, bringing up too many broken memories of the past.

Augusta's unsightly lime green hair and Capitol accent shook Sam back into reality.

"You look wonderful, dear," Augusta crowed to her, a sentiment not returned by Sam.

"Unfortunately, you don't," Cheyenne had already begun lambasting Augusta. "Do you have an inkling of how bad you look?"

"Charming as ever," Augusta stuck her nose up. "And Dallas, it's been too long."

"Only six months this time," he gave her an unenthusiastic hug, clearly down about the Reaping.

"I _know_," Augusta missed his obvious expression. "I'm excited, as well. Are we going to be _lucky_ again this year?"

Sam didn't call that luck at all, especially after what Rex had told her.

"So, what am I supposed to do?" she asked Augusta, looking lost.

"You'll just need to take your seat on the platform and look pretty, Samantha," Augusta answered, concentrating more on her appearance in a handheld mirror. "Nothing to it. _I_ have to recite all these things by memory; really a drag isn't it?"

_Probably more of a drag for the kids being sent to their deaths_, Sam thought. That was Capitol rationalization at its finest.

People packed in the square like sardines by the time Sam trotted out onto the stage. It was nowhere near close enough to hold the entirety of District 10's population; the wide majority of people would be scattered on the streets and watching from broadcast screens. Even the sheer number of children in the district barely fit into their assigned areas. Sam knew her home was a large district, but she wondered if any of the twelve districts could fit everyone around their Hall of Justice.

Cheyenne slumped down in a seat next to her, leaning over and squinting at the microphone already set up.

"You know what I always learned about these things?" she asked Sam.

"No?"

"War. Terrible war. Did you know people die in war? The Capitol thinks you don't."

Sam tried to see Clara and Clay, but the sheer mass of people made things much too crowded. She couldn't even make out who filled each respective section, with breaks between groups of kids obscured by the large number of faces.

"Welcome, welcome, District 10," Augusta called out at the microphone as Dallas slumped down into the final seat for the victors. "And _reigning_ Hunger Games champions! _Happy _Hunger Games, and may the odds be _ever_ in your favor."

Nobody clapped. Most of the adults simply looked angry, either having children eligible or simply annoyed at having a nice day disrupted by the event.

"She has a _special video!"_ Cheyenne hissed with mock glee to Dallas and Sam. "I wonder what it will be?"

"Do you have to do this every year?" Dallas asked her.

"And now, I have a special video from the Capitol!" Augusta fulfilled Cheyenne's prediction.

Dallas and Mayor Navarro both looked to be nodding off as the presentation went on. _War, terrible war_ led into the usual montage of inspiring and uplifting propaganda that Sam quickly became bored with.

"Do they have like, no creativity?" Cheyenne asked Sam halfway through the video, seeing that Dallas had turned to completely ignoring everything. "Seriously, I think I've memorized this by now. 'And so it was decreed that each year, we'll blow a bunch of money on making a thinly-veiled excuse for pediatric bloodsport…'"

"Where do you come up with this stuff?" Sam finally laughed at something Cheyenne said.

"It's not like I really do much else," she shrugged. "I only get to insult Augusta once a year, usually."

"She's not that bad," Sam opined. As much as Augusta's upspeak-laden voice got on her nerves, their escort was considerably better than some shown every year. At least she had no grotesque surgical alterations.

"Yes she's that bad," Cheyenne countered. "Who has green hair? I dare you to find me someone normal who has green hair."

Sam wondered if Cheyenne was making jokes just to draw her attention away from the inevitable selection of two kids headed to imminent doom. She was doing a good job, but Sam figured it was more likely that Cheyenne was actually being honest. She didn't seem to ever lose her borderline-aggressive demeanor of insults and sarcasm.

"Agrippa has tattoos and he's nice," Sam offered.

"His hair's normal. He also wears normal clothes."

The video wrapped up and Mayor Navarro slumped to his feet to get the first Reaping bowl. Sam felt the butterflies in her stomach gather and tense up; in just seconds she'd know her first tribute. The first kid she'd have to try and forget as he or she squared off with death.

She wondered if Dallas and Cheyenne had felt like this last year as Augusta had called out "Samantha Parker."

"Let's go with the gentlemen first this year," Augusta seemed all too eager to keep moving along. "The Reaping bowl, if I may."

_The 197__th__ and 198__th__ tributes of District 10_, Sam thought, gritting her teeth. _Five have come back. Three are alive today._ _The odds aren't in our favor_.

That only five had returned from District 10 seemed unfair to her. District 1 had four in the seven years before Sam had won – Careers had taken all seven, with the remaining three won by two brutes from District 2 (notably, the 93rd Games where the victor, a nasty boy named Vespasian, had his lower jaw sheared off by a sword just moments before he gutted his opposition and won) and a lethal girl from District 4 named Jetty. Yet Districts 10, 11, and 12 hadn't won before her since Dallas's victory in the 79th Games. Granted, they'd won 74 (Thresh from 11,) 76 (Cheyenne) and 78 (Rory Hawthorne from District 12) as well, but that little run had set up a nineteen-year drought since then for the outlying districts. It wasn't as if the next dozen or so Games had gone well for the other less-represented districts either; Careers had taken six of the 80s.

"Waco Sweetwater."

Sam had completely missed Augusta taking a slip out of the male bowl. As she silently thanked her for not picking one of Clay's many slips, she caught sight of the first tribute. At first glance, he had no hope. The boy came from near the front – probably twelve or thirteen, and small at that. He had the skinny and lanky build of a dairy milker's son, forced to survive with little food and long hours in work that didn't grow muscle. Milking a cow all day would do nothing to help in the Games.

_Then again, you won_, Sam thought. Sure, but she knew _some_ skills. She hated to write off the kid already, but it didn't look good.

"Step right up…right up," Augusta helped the terrified boy up the stairs to the platform. He was maybe five feet tall and shaking with trepidation, his strawberry blonde hair soaked with sweat from both the heat of the day and the fear of the moment. Sam wanted to run up and tell him everything would be okay…but she knew better. Most likely, it wouldn't be okay.

"One up, one to go, now to the girls," Augusta smiled against the contempt and disgust radiating out from the crowd.

Waco cast his amber eyes over at Sam for just a moment, catching her look of sympathy that she tossed his way. Cheyenne had her head thrown back to the sun in boredom, and Dallas was just waking up from what had actually been a short nap.

_Great_, Sam thought. _Now I'm going to have to be responsible._

"Here we go," Augusta thrust her hand into the Reaping bowl for the girls, sifting about the slips of paper. She paused to snatch one before tossing it to the side, grabbing the slip next to it and pulling her hand back out. She strutted back to the microphone before pulling off the seal and reading the name aloud.

"Clara Bowie."

Sam's heart collapsed. She had been prepared for Clay, but certainly not Clara. Not with her name barely even in the bowl to begin with. _No. That's not even possible_. _SIX times. SIX. How do you pick that you bitch?_

She squeaked out a cry of despair as a flash of blonde hair moved through the crowd. In Clara's defense, she held her head high and took long, deep breaths in coming before all of Panem. One of her hands clutched the white-spotted green dress she wore for support, bleached with the power of her grip. She pursed her lips before taking slow steps up the platform to Augusta's encouragement. Sam met her gaze for a fraction of a second – and instead of seeing the steely resignation Clara's demeanor showed off, she saw only fright.

"Your pair of tributes," Augusta hadn't even noticed Sam's descent from nervousness to fallout. "Go on and shake."

Peacekeepers came to haul off Waco and Clara in a hurry, allowing her only enough time to throw a look back at Sam before she disappeared behind the doors of the Hall of Justice.

"Let's go," Cheyenne grunted, looking to get out of her seat.

"No, no," Sam let the words fall out of her mouth, barely even in control. "No, I want to see that."

"There's nothing to see, Sam," Dallas had taken notice of Sam's obvious reaction. "Just names and paper. I'm sorry, that's how it is."

"No," she continued to deny, leaving the other two and walking right past Augusta. Mayor Navarro had collected both bowls with a disgruntled huff, preparing to leave the stage as Sam walked straight up to him.

"Lemme see that," she pointed to the female Reaping bowl.

"It's closed. Tributes are picked," the mayor's sad eyes showed defeat. "Nothing to do now."

"I don't care!" Sam exclaimed, nearly shouting. Some of the younger girls nearest the stage had taken notice of her confrontation. "Give it to me!"

Mayor Navarro handed over the bow, giving her a questionable expression. Sam pulled out a slip, opening it so quickly that she nearly ripped the paper.

CLARA BOWIE.

Six times in the bowl and two selections? What was going on?

She reached in again and again, five times – six, seven, eight. Each time the same result came up, with Clara's name in computer type. Sam had already exceeded the number of times Clara had been entered as heat rose in her face. This was direct manipulation. Someone had rigged this bowl to get her picked; someone _wanted_ Clara in the Games.

Sam soon found out why.

As she moved on to her tenth and eleventh slips taken from the bottom of the bowl, she came across writing scrawled on the paper now, rather than written in polite machine writing. One showed CLARA BOWIE in etching that better resembled death scrawl than readable ink; another was clearly written in crimson blood. Finally, Sam dug out her fifteenth slip, looking down on Clara's name yet again. There was more:

I WARNED YOU NOT TO DEFY ME, MISS PARKER.


	11. Dreams of Hope

"Sam, you have to calm down. These things happen. There's not anything that can be done about it."

While waiting for Clara and Waco to arrive from the Hall of Justice, Sam had devolved into a mess aboard the Capitol train in the dining car. Cheyenne loitered against one of the windows with a glass of whiskey as Dallas tried to bring Sam back under control. Nothing he was doing was working – she only saw the scrawled handwriting underneath Clara's name, with the threat and punishment for what she'd said. She had damned Clara to the Games, likely to death. If only she'd kept her stupid mouth shut!

Worse, now she knew in no way could she speak of anything. Dallas couldn't know – couldn't know anything but that Sam was terrified for a friend.

"She's my best friend!" Sam fired back, on the verge of launching crystal glassware across the train car. "And I don't think we're gonna get back-to-back victors here in District 10!"

"That's optimistic. We're already off to a good start," Cheyenne murmured sarcastically.

"You were chosen with only five papers in," Dallas appealed to logic. "She stood just the same chance you did. It's horrible, but the Games are like that. You know more than anyone, just coming off them yourself."

"Or someone set her up to get at Sam," Cheyenne offered. "Been done before. Hawthorne last year; you think that was accidental?"

Sam blinked at Cheyenne. Without even any outside words, she'd already guessed what had happened. Sam couldn't confirm it for fear of Nihlus's reprisal – he could be on the train, for all she knew – but Cheyenne was clearly indicating she knew more than she was letting on.

"Why would they want to get at her?" Dallas asked with a quizzical glance. "I don't think so."

"First non-Career in eight years?" Cheyenne glanced up from drowning herself in her drink. "And just the right kind of person to break their streak? I could think of a lot of things. Break her, and you break anybody who was inspired by her win. That simple. She killed two Careers, and her group killed a third. That's as good as a bow shot over the Capitol."

"I don't think I have anything to do with it," Sam lied, knowing that was exactly it. "But she's not related to any former tributes or anything. She's just…I dunno, not that different from me, I guess."

"Let's keep in mind we have _two_ tributes, not just one," Cheyenne added, showing some leadership for the first time that Sam had ever seen. "When they get on, you two stick back. I'll deal with any first formalities. Since we're only the second district to have Reapings today, when they start showing recaps, you two can show up."

"No, I-" Sam began.

"You're emotionally out of whack," Cheyenne cut her off. "Dallas can calm you down in the meantime; he's better at that than me. And if the boy – and your friend - sees you losing your head, guess what happens? We're done at the Cornucopia. That's a great strategy. If you want the slightest _gumption_ of bringing either of them back home alive, try to at least look like it wasn't a minor miracle you survived last year. Even though it was."

"I don't care who's friends with who," she turned her back to leave for the lounge car, where Clara and Waco would be seated when they arrived. "But I don't really want to see both our kids dead and gone after ten seconds of helplessly being gutted like a squealing pig. If you'll excuse me…"

She drained the remnants of her whiskey, slamming the glass down on the table and stalking out. Sam looked on after she'd left, stunned by her sudden defense of their tributes.

"I don't think I've ever seen her like that," Sam managed.

"She's pretty defensive about winning; about trying to get people out alive," Dallas explained calmly, glad that Cheyenne had at least brought Sam down to Earth. "She's a lot of the reason I got out back in '79. But she usually handles the boy, like with me and with Laredo last year. She'll take care of Waco, I'll handle your friend Clara when you're off getting accosted by crowds and media and more. But Sam, I need you for something."

Dallas took a seat, flipping himself a frosted scone off a nearby platter of food. "You're young, fresh, and the Capitol always loves the newcomer to the victor crowd. I honestly don't think the boy has much of a chance – just speaking objectively; maybe I'm wrong – but your friend's pretty and did a good enough job at the Hall of Justice of looking tough. That'll draw some sponsorship on its own, especially if she puts on a good showing and Agrippa comes through again at the Parade. But I need _you_ on the front lines of garnering sponsorships. You'll be the best thing we have out there."

Sam let the idea sink around in her mind before changing topics. "Did you think I had much of a chance last year?"

"Does the answer matter to you?" Dallas asked between bites of the scone.

"I guess not."

"Well…you deserve my honesty. I really didn't. Sam, you were a small fifteen year-old who'd cried all the way up to the podium. You were cute, but that was about all I knew at the time. That only goes so far."

"'Spose so," Sam murmured, slumping against a wall of the train. She looked out a window as the district's car pulled up, letting Augusta and the two tributes out. The escort seemed particularly perky to get on her way – just like the past year. Augusta and District 10 didn't go well together.

"What do I do to get sponsors?" Sam asked. "Just talk to them?"

"Be persuasive," Dallas instructed. "Get them to think our two are going to win. Sell them. Don't do anything you're not comfortable doing – because people in the Capitol will try for that – but do everything you are comfortable with. Get wealthy people to trust you and like you; just like you would if you were a tribute again, only now you're actually taking their money personally."

"What do you mean by 'comfortable' with?"

"I'll…uh, let you use your imagination."

_Oh_, Sam thought, remembering President Octavian's words. _I think you and I will have fun together, Samantha. _That didn't sound promising, especially after his monologue on "enjoying the present." It wasn't as if Rex would look out for her.

_And Nihlus wants to use you to get closer to both…_

The whole thing was a mess for Sam. She'd inadvertently locked her best friend into a fight for the death and through it all would have to play her way out of a political dogfight brewing between sides vastly more powerful than she could imagine. How was she supposed to handle all these different roles?

Voices from the other car indicated Augusta's entrance with Clara and Waco. Cheyenne already began her usual routine, criticizing the escort's presence for another year. Augusta let out a noise close to "hmph" and opened the door to the dining car.

"Dallas, you have to do something about her," Augusta fumed, her face red and providing a horribly vivid contrast to her hair. "_She_…is like a _poison_ on these children. And now Sam here is so well-behaved and minds her manners; is there no way we can just kick Cheyenne off?"

"I didn't make the rules," Dallas shrugged indifferently. "You probably won't have to deal with her next year, so look at it that way."

"If you get her drunk enough she'll just pass out," Sam suggested.

"And a splendid impression that would make!" Augusta huffed, heading off towards a car further along in the train and slamming the door behind her.

Dallas and Sam sat quietly in the train for the next hour, watching Constantine Flickerman and Claudius Templesmith talk about District 6's unassuming pair of forgettable tributes. Cheyenne had morphed from her pugnacious start to the train ride from the previous year, where she'd dared Laredo (successfully) to prove himself as a fighter. Now her voice, although loud and blunt, rang out in answer to questions from the lounge car.

"You feel good enough to go in?" Dallas asked finally.

"Yeah," Sam nodded, feeling anything but alright. "Yeah, I guess so. Have to some time."

Dallas helped her to her feet, steadying her as Sam took a deep breath. The connecting door glided open as an ice cube hurtled past Sam and into the door. She took an involuntary step back, looking up as Cheyenne prepared for another throw.

"Oh," she put the ice back down into its holder. "I thought you were Augusta coming back."

Sam tossed a look down. Waco looked petrified in his chair – he probably hadn't even gotten over the Reaping yet. Sam figured she'd looked just the same last year, with all the fears of never returning home. Numerous times that had almost come to fruition.

Beside him, Clara held onto a fractured semblance of her earlier posture. Her eyes were puffy and red from tears, her hair loosely tossed from wringing her hands through it. She looked up long enough to meet Sam's gaze before casting her eyes downward again.

"I'm Dallas, this is Sam," Dallas introduced to Clara and Waco before turning back to Cheyenne. "What have you told them so far?"

"Pretty much bitched about Augusta and the Capitol," Cheyenne replied. "I explained sponsors and stuff up to the arena itself. Let's wait 'til we have an idea of who else is in before we dive into strategy."

"The kids from 6 aren't much. Constantine already ran them by."

"Well, _whoopee_. When are they ever?"

Neither Clara nor Waco looked entirely comfortable, so Sam tried changing tactics.

"Let's watch during dinner," she suggested. "That way everyone can get acclimated and feeling a little bit better and we can have clear heads. We can all sit down and figure out a better plan of what to do when we're cleaned up and focused."

Cheyenne shrugged. "Sure. Nothing else really gonna get done 'til then. Since you're apparently perky and strategizing now, their rooms are 2 and 3 back. Go show 'em around."

Sam nodded and took Waco and Clara back down the shaking train. She dropped the former off at the first room; he hadn't spoken one word anyway, and Sam wanted time to speak privately to Clara anyway. One the two had cleared into the next car and had gotten alone, Sam let it all fly – still picking her words carefully, concerned what a second slip-up before Nihlus's eyes and ears could cost her.

"I'm so sorry Clara," Sam poured out. "I'm sorry; I didn't think this could happen…"

"It's okay, Sam," she replied. "It's…"

Clara next did something Sam had never seen her do in all their years of friendship. She let her hands fall to her sides in defeat, bursting into a mess of tears as she unloaded all the emotions of being chosen as a tribute. Sam clutched her in an embrace, letting her taller friend bury her face in her hair.

"I know," Sam whispered into Clara's shoulder. "I know. We're gonna figure something out. I'll get you through this, Clara. I'm not gonna let them take you."

Clara pulled away, nodding and sniffing loudly. "Is this…is this what it felt like?"

"Yeah," Sam said. "Pretty much every day until I didn't have a choice anymore."

Sam left her to her own thoughts in her room, neglecting to return to Dallas and Cheyenne and instead taking residence in the next car's first quarters. She tossed her clothes to the green-carpeted floor, engaging in her usual routine of taking an obscenely long shower and utilizing an ungodly number of fragrant shampoos. Dallas had told her to stick away, but she didn't care if she smelled like an aborted amalgam of two hundred different flowering plants. Right now, the warm rain of the shower provided a place to let her fears drip away – if only temporarily. The Capitol was trying to take away her best friend; she'd indulge in all of their luxuries in the meantime. There was nothing to gain by rejecting them out of ideology.

She left Clara and Waco alone until dinner, figuring they'd want some time privately to sort out their feelings. Dallas provided idle conversation in the afternoon as Cheyenne stormed off to her room after yet another argument with Augusta. She didn't show up for dinner; Sam doubted she'd show up for breakfast either, given her usual penchant for surly mornings.

Constantine Flickerman's bobbing tangerine hair took up the television as Sam helped herself to a dizzying array of expensive foods. Waco seemed lost in the extravagance – she'd managed to coax a few words out of him, learning that she'd been right with the guess of a dairy milker's son. He was the only sibling of a single father after his mother had died several years back, leaving a sickening feeling in Sam's gut. She'd ignored the boy out of her friendship with Clara, yet already he sounded all too much like herself between his downtrodden emotions of getting selected to his history. At least Clara and Waco got along – Sam was happy to see she wouldn't have to preside over the likes of someone like Laredo again, who had quickly distinguished himself for not liking her the previous year.

As tributes flew by in the evening recap of the Reapings, Dallas almost choked on a piece of meat as District 4 came up.

"Firth Odair?" he exclaimed. "That's Finnick's son."

Sam felt a rock drop in her gut. Finnick, who'd been kind enough to greet her warmly at her stop in District 4 during the Victory Tour. Finnick, who according to Rex had contributed heavily towards garnering sponsorships towards her alliance with Gannet in the arena. Sam had felt horrible having a friend drawn into the Reapings…but just like with Storm, Finnick would have to mentor his son, knowing the odds weren't good for any one tribute. Compared to that, Sam's predicament seemed positively pleasant.

"Do you know anything about him?" Clara interjected, already searching for ways to boost her chances. Sam inwardly smiled at that.

"He's a Career, just like Finnick," Dallas explained as Constantine focused on shots of the green-eyed, brown-haired boy of an average-height and swimmer's build. "Doesn't really act like a Career. Good enough kid…I don't know if he'll join the annual Career alliance like 4 usually does. If betters are picking favorites, though…that's a good place to start."

"Apart from us, of course," Sam intervened, catching Waco's look of despondency. "Does Annie show up too, Dallas? I just briefly met her in District 4."

"Nah, their most recent victor, Jetty, is the other mentor as of recently," Dallas replied negatively. "She's decent. Annie's…not really fit to be a mentor."

"Shame about that woman," Augusta bemoaned. "But everyone has a different reaction to winning, I suppose."

"That's kind of what happens when you watch your friend get decapitated," Dallas said.

_Or worse,_ Sam thought. She still saw Gannet in her worst nightmares at times, watching Hadrian's halberd blade eviscerate her and spill intestine before she had time to take out his knees. It'd never leave her dreams.

"Let's go onto other…things," Sam motioned, looking away.

Clara had ignored the three, instead paying attention to the continuing recap of Firth before turning back to Sam. "How'd you get the boy from 12 and the girl from 4 on your team last year?"

_Shoot_. "I, uh," Sam stumbled, tripping over memories of Storm and Gannet. "Gannet – the girl – was quiet and nice, and since she didn't have anybody looking to get with her, I offered. I just…let her trust me, I guess. She was just a kid from a Career district, so I think she was a little shell-shocked. Storm came to me, actually…I thought he was an idiot at first, but he wanted to be with me. So I agreed…it went from there."

"If someone looks promising," Dallas added, noticing Clara's interest in Firth on the screen. "Don't hesitate to try and form a bond. Like Sam showed, you're better off with a group – as long as you get along – than without one. The Careers have their pack, and that's very hard to break if you don't have something to compete with."

District 2's recap proved Dallas's point.

The boy from District 2 was a standard brute like Hadrian had been during Sam's games, a powerful and brawny blonde-haired warrior named Commodus. The girl from 2, Nyx, was something else entirely. Standing well over six feet in height and bearing a dark, seductive body with well-toned musculature, she seemed capable of devouring her formidable district partner.

"I guess that's not good," Waco eked out when Constantine recapped District 2, brimming with excitement.

"Physically," Dallas offered options. "But up in the head, sometimes the Careers aren't all there. Hadrian in last year's Games…I think Sam could offer a better explanation than I can, but he was arrogant and let killing get to his head."

"He was a little off," Sam agreed.

"So don't team with them?" Clara quipped as more of an off-color joke than anything.

"That's probably a good plan."

To round out the Careers, District 4's girl, Scylla, came in with the same swimmer's build as Firth and a mane of reddish hair. District 1 offered a dark-haired, slender girl named Sinopia and a snarky, manipulative-looking boy, Sistine. Only after Constantine mentioned it did Sam see what he was getting after – they were siblings.

"Well…there's your Careers," Dallas said with a wry smile. "1 is gonna be a challenge, especially if they're with 2."

Sam saw an opening, however. "If you can get Firth away from them," she said to Clara. "Then that's one less Career to deal with, and maybe a good ally as well for you."

"This is actually kinda funny," Dallas laughed. "I hate to say 'back in my day,' but you're the first victor I've seen actively using the strategy of teamwork in the arena, Sam. Outside the Careers, of course…but I don't know why more people don't think of it. It works. You proved that."

"Thank you," Sam smiled. She didn't know why nobody else used that, either. Tributes on their own had a habit of dying – except for Royal, but anyone with the ability to frighten Fresco and Hadrian was not to be understated.

_She died, anyway, too. So point stands._

The "middle districts," as usual, offered scant pickings. District 3 gave a thin boy seemingly lost in thought as he made his way to the podium named Gauss. A miserable girl with brown hair named Willow represented District 7, although she bore considerable upper-arm build – likely from work out in the forests, given her age at eighteen. A lanky boy with messy brown hair named Wikus stood up for District 9; Sam privately gave him no chance. District 9 had to be the unluckiest district in the Games. She couldn't remember who the last victor from there had been, but it had been at least thirty years.

"I look awful," Waco bemoaned as District 10's recap flashed by. "No sponsor wants that."

"You'll be fine," Sam tried to brighten his mood, feeling bad for dismissing him so fast earlier. "Once your stylists work up something for the chariot rides, you'll look great. I was a mess of tears last year. Even the Capitol understands that it's a tough moment."

Clara grimaced at her appearance, but to Sam she looked absolutely dignified. Her straight posture and high head radiated confidence, something severely lacking from many of the outlying districts. If nothing else, Sam could always sell that.

Districts 11 and 12 closed the recaps with a bland note. 11 had two tributes who Sam instantly forgot, and 12 's only note was their girl, an olive-skinned brunette named Vesta, stumbling and tripping as she made her way up to the podium.

"See, not that bad," Sam re-assured Waco. "You could have been her."

"You sound like Cheyenne," Dallas poked fun. "Way to make fun of District 12 already. Everyone does that."

"I think I get a pass," Sam replied, referring to Storm.

She wondered where Gale Hawthorne, full of his depressed anger and bottled-up rage, was now without anyone around him and his son dead. She'd been all too glad to see him depart off into the darkness of that horrible prison-like district during the Tour. He probably hadn't cared one bit about the Reapings; probably had spat the names of the tributes and gone home.

_Jerk_.

"Well, enough excitement for one day, I think," Augusta seemed energized with Cheyenne absent. "I believe it's time to retire."

"I'll second that," Dallas said as the train began hitting the brakes, with an announcement for re-fueling coming over the intercom. "Got a lot to do tomorrow. You two will want to get to bed before too long…same with you, Sam."

Dallas and Augusta left Sam and the two tributes at the table as they departed. Clara seemed itching to say something as the train pulled in to a stop, fidgeting with her hands.

"Can…can we go outside?" she asked. "Since we're stopped, and all."

"I guess so," Sam looked back towards the lounge car. "Just out the door, I guess."

"We want to ask you something," Clara went on. "But…outside."

Sam shrugged and led the way, pushing past a Capitol attendant and throwing the door open. A blast of warm wind flew in, but District 10 had long since disappeared to the rear. Rather, the smell of wheat and long grasses fumigated its way into Sam's nose.

"Near District 9?" she posed the question. Given how fast the train moved, it was hard to determine location.

The three walked down towards the rear of the train, gathering the red lights at the end of its viewing car. Sam made a mental note to spend the night in there again; with the lights of the Capitol obscuring all semblance of the sky, she didn't know when she'd see the stars again. Quietly Sam put her hand up as she walked, stretching her three fingers out from the end of the drinking dipper and reaching it over three times. There it was, just as always – the North Star, the shining light she'd found solace in ever since she was a child and her brother had showed her the way to always find home. Now, at least, she didn't have to worry about whether she'd see Jake again: that was a given. Whether or not she'd still be sane after the 99th Hunger Games would be another question.

Clara turned about at the end of the train, ready to fire away.

"Okay, because I didn't want to ask aboard," she began, her pupils wide in the dark night. "We – Waco and I – wanted to know…can we trust Cheyenne?"

"Um, yeah," Sam answered. Was that really her question? "She's not really nice, but you can trust her."

"She just seemed too eager to throw us against each other, like we were ready to start fighting right away," Clara clarified.

"Probably just because of last year. Laredo and I didn't get off to a very good start…why, are you two…"

"We want to team up," Waco offered, with Clara nodding agreement. "Like you did with those other two last year. It seemed like it worked."

"Yeah," Clara carried on his logic. "We get along, we're district partners, and we'll have time to figure things out before the arena now. Maybe we can get the boy from 4, as well; maybe someone else too. I mean…you did it, Sam. You brought everyone together and came out."

_Damn, she's thinking way further ahead than I am,_ Sam thought. She didn't even have to consider the reasoning Rex had given her – the unspoken rule of playing smarter to succeed in his Games, rather than harder. Clara had picked that up just by watching Sam's success, now trusting her friend to be her guide and pulling the boy along as well.

_Great, I'm a role model. Not the best choice, Clara…_

Sam thought about that, however. In a normal Games, sure, it wouldn't be the best choice to follow a tribute who'd very nearly been killed by mutts three times and had been inches away from death in battles against Troop, Laredo, Hadrian, Fresco, and Royal. Yet these weren't normal Games – if playing smarter worked in the arena, why wouldn't it work outside the arena, too?

Why wouldn't it work as a mentor?

_Especially when Rex and Octavian both want you in their games of power...  
_

Sam felt a surge of hope. She had far more leverage than she thought – while siding with one of the two forces in the Capitol outright was obviously a poor plan, she began concocting a strategy of playing them against each other to at least get Clara out. She'd deal with the fallout later; the immediate need required attention.

"That's awesome," Sam smiled, more at her own burst of ingenuity than Clara and Waco's willingness to ally. "That's great. You guys can learn more together. Get more people to like you for sponsorships. Get the odds in your favor, you know…ah, that was bad."

"That was the last thing," Clara looked nervous asking her final question. "Waco already knows we're friends, Sam. I told him. So, please, tell us…honestly, because you're the only other person I can trust right now. What are our chances? Truthfully?"

_A lot better if I force Rex to toss me some bones,_ Sam thought.

She sighed. This question didn't have a great answer. "You're already better off if you stick together than most of the districts like 5, 11, 6, all those. I didn't see anybody really concerning out of them; maybe the girl from 7. The boy from 3 creeped me out, but he looked like a schemer. If you can swing him to your side, you might be in some luck, since 3 always has the smart kids. With the Careers…"

Sam exhaled sharply. "If you want the honest answer, half the reason I'm still here is because Royal decided she didn't want to play nice with the other Careers and took out two for me. Gannet wasn't a Career either, so I only had to worry about my group taking out the last two, and then I had the fight with Royal at the end, of course. If all six of them get together…I can't say that'll be easy. That won't be good at all, no matter what kind of sponsor I can find."

"If you can divide them, though…somehow, I don't know right now, but _somehow_ – then you're in much better shape. Just…look for ways to use the arena to help you. I wouldn't have won if I didn't do that."

"With the mutt, right?" Waco asked.

"Yeah, that helped. A lot," Sam nodded – _good, he gets it too. Smart, not hard_. "But anything that stands out in the arena. As long as you're together than you'll have someone watching out over your back and someone awake at all times. That way someone else can't sneak up on you."

"So…optimistic?" Clara probed.

"As long as all six Careers aren't acting like wolves, yeah," Sam said hopefully. "Just make sure you think things out. I'm not really gonna have time to talk to you when we get to the Capitol until after the chariots are done, but when you're waiting to go there…get a look at the others and see if anything comes to mind."

"Alright," Clara said. "I guess we should go back, huh?"

"Yeah, Dallas would get mad at me for even coming out, probably," Sam said.

Waco hurried back towards the train, leaving Clara and Sam slowly pacing their way back.

"He's good?" Sam asked her, referring to Waco. "I don't really know what to make of him."

"He's nice. Quiet, but nice," Clara said. "He's…he's a little like you."

"That's a good thing?"

"Of course, Sam."

Sam looked around for shadows in the dark or rustling in the grasses. Finding nothing, she decided to venture one last piece of advice to her best friend.

"Clara," she whispered softly, her voice just loud enough to be audible. "Just…use _here_ in the arena, okay?"

Clara looked on with curiosity as Sam pointed to her head. "My head?"

Sam nodded. "Just…I know things. I want to tell you to follow your heart, but that's not gonna win. I don't want to say that, but I have to. I want you to come back."

"Okay," Clara said, not entirely understanding. "Okay…good night, Sam."

"I'll…see you tomorrow," Sam said, stepping back on the train after her and loitering in the lounge car.

The diminished lights in the train gave her time to think. The Capitol pervaded her thoughts – would Nihlus have heard that? As ridiculous as that sounded to her, the man seemingly knew _everything_. Would he have information from the train, too?

And what would he do if he did?

Sam threw the notion aside. She needed to focus all her energy into fighting for Clara (and by association, Waco) now. She couldn't worry about what would happen to her. Maybe Rex had the answer…maybe Octavian, maybe both. Either way, she wouldn't give up. Not now, not with so much at stake.

Lying down in the viewing car under the North Star, Sam gave in to dreams of hope.

* * *

_**A/N: Long chapter there; thanks for sticking with it. I am awful at District 1 names – youch. And before someone asks, Waco's name is pronounced WAY-co, like the city in Texas. Not Whack-o. Although that'd be hilarious.  
**_


	12. Enemy at the Gates

_**A/N: Before we get too far into this chapter, some clarification (for here and later): since this story is the 99**__**th**__** Games, it's thus 25 years after THG. Characters involved (a la Finnick, etc.) are thus not exactly the same personality as you might be accustomed to – I'm extrapolating how they'll turn out based on the events that have happened between then and now as they age and get a broader view of things. Finnick's in his 40s, Haymitch in his 60s, etc. Just so someone's not too confused about why people aren't quite how they are in the books. Also, ya know, because Finnick's kid is in the Games. Which kinda has a bad effect on a parent.**_

* * *

Seeing the Capitol as a tribute – from afar as the center of attention and always followed around by a giant spotlight – was one thing. Actually _walking_ about its streets – even as a mentor from the districts – was an entirely new experience for Sam. She still had the spotlight on her, noticed by every Capitol citizen who crossed her path, with some letting out shrieks of recognition and others begging for autographs, pictures, or worse. She knew this was only the beginning – interviews, guest appearances with Constantine, live broadcasts during the Games in the studio to analyze competitors, all were on her docket in the coming weeks.

Still, being able to take in the citadel of Panem's power without fearing for imminent demise was slightly comforting. _Slightly_. After all, at the same time Clara lay under the tools and oversight of Sam's old prep team, later to be attended to by Agrippa's painted hands. The preparation was daunting for a first-time visitor here.

The Capitol streets were, too.

"What is _that_?" Sam walked with Dallas and Cheyenne towards the Games Control Room, where all the mentors for the 99th Games would be assembling. "That black thing?"

Standing two dozen feet away, the strangest effigy of a human being stared back at Sam with blank gray eyes. It rose seven feet in height, covered in a sheen of armored black gloss. It bore no mouth, ears, or many other distinguishing patterns; simply utilitarian in appearance. The organic side of it was clear, however; veiny protrusions stuck out from the armor at points along its tall body, with fleshy knobs scattered across its gleaming torso.

"Sentry," Cheyenne grunted.

"What?"

"You see the black-clad Peacekeepers around?" Cheyenne pointed out several of the alternatively-colored soldiers on patrol, standing out from their usual white companions. "Started about three years ago. The Capitol's been bulking up. They stuck those grotesque things – call 'em Sentries – in last year. I guess they're expecting something."

"What would they be expecting?" Sam asked.

"Beats me. I don't want to know."

"I heard a rumor from Finnick," Dallas said quietly, making sure to keep his voice down as the three traversed the wide alpine avenues. "They're courtesy of Phaeston Rex. Guns stuck right into all that stuff; you wouldn't even see it kill you."

_Oh_, Sam thought. _Leverage against the President?_

"So what, he's gonna toss one into the arena or something?" Cheyenne muttered blandly. "Got any ideas on this year's theme?"

"We've had snow and desert back-to-back," Sam added. "Maybe something with some actual green."

"Hope not," Dallas replied grimly. "Those lush arenas always played right into the Career strengths. Everybody else would get comfortable…and then dead. There were four forests during that seven-year run before you."

"It's one year before the Quell; they're not gonna go crazy," Cheyenne answered her own question. "They'll save crazy for next year. First centennial? Gonna be ugly."

Sam let her gaze fall on the bizarre people that crisscrossed the streets. Hairs and skins in all sorts of colors: white, pink, orange, green, yellow, blue, and beyond. Strange alterations made some look less human than the Sentries, attempting and failing to stylize themselves after animals or nature. One woman in particular stood out to Sam, walking a pair of bright orange dogs down the street like walking apricots. She didn't understand that choice: dogs were good for herding sheep, and an orange dog would be entirely out of place against the prairie. It'd be seen a mile away – so why have one?

"If you think this is weird," Cheyenne noticed Sam's gaze. "Then…well, yeah, this is weird."

"It's just different actually being down here around all these people," Sam said. "I mean, on the Victory Tour we were just taken everywhere…now…don't these people have anything better to do than make themselves look insane?"

"Welcome to how the Capitol works, Sam," Dallas murmured as a purple-haired woman shouted cries of delight in recognizing the three victors. "Our work in the districts makes sure they can look like some cross between a bird and a cat."

"More like a dead bird and a premature cat fetus," Cheyenne countered bluntly. "I seriously hate this place."

The Games Control Center rose up like a giant pantheon from the streets. A five-story, columned gray façade gave way to a great dome of limestone and marble. Just behind it stood the great golden obelisk Sam had first noticed last year, the eye on its pinnacle still staring out across Panem. To her, it was as if the Capitol had constructed the entire Games area as a monument to slaughter. A street over stood the Remake Center, where Clara and Waco lay poked and prodded a thousand times over, and the Training Center. She didn't look forward to returning there any time soon, but it'd be her home tonight.

"We're all sure looking chipper today."

Sam turned towards the strong voice behind her as a familiar figure strode up. Finnick Odair looked no worse for wear in the Capitol, smiling seductively towards onlookers in the street. Beside him walked a woman not much older than Sam with long, wavy auburn hair – Jetty, District 4's other mentor and their most recent victor. Sam remembered her games being violent – one of the forest settings that Dallas had mentioned, where a District 7 tribute named Pine had found a nasty killing streak with a battleaxe. He'd fractured the Career alliance Jetty had been a part of, taking out both the tributes from District 1 before being on the receiving end of an arrow.

"Why are you so happy?" Cheyenne greeted him gruffly, referring indirectly to Firth's Reaping.

"Because I'm on the street," Finnick's expression flipped 180 degrees as darkness swarmed his face, his eyes narrowing and voice lowering. "If you want to talk Firth and have me not faking for all these eyes, find me in the Training Center. We can be honest then; I'm no help to him if I'm a mess."

Sam stood awkwardly as Cheyenne and Finnick stared each other down, internally questioning what sort of rift existed between the two. Finnick relented, returning to his happy-go-lucky faked Capitol persona. "Dallas, always good to see you – and Sam, _welcome to the Capitol_ and all its hospitality during the Games. Oh yea – Jetty, Sam. Sam, Jetty."

"Hi," Sam shook Jetty's hand, with her returning the greeting vigorously. "Finnick, I'm so-"

Dallas kicked her shin – _Not now, Sam_. _Not in public_.

"Have you seen anybody else yet?" he intervened, turning the conversation elsewhere.

"We ran into Johanna on the way here," Jetty replied.

"She was quite happy and full of smiles," Finnick finished sarcastically. "Just as always. Let's go in, though…my arm's going to fall off if I keep having to pose for people."

Sam felt out of place as the five victors walked up the steps to the foyer. Dallas and Finnick shared a clearly-established rapport, bringing her mentor into a sort of ease she'd never seen. Even Cheyenne seemed less on-guard around the two from District 4, at least tolerating Jetty's non-stop chatterbox. Sam, on the other hand, could do little but listen – she knew next to nothing about any of the other victors apart from what she'd seen on television and the few she'd met during the Victory Tour. Even her connection to Finnick – the victor she'd had the longest conversation with – was limited at best.

Of course, she had no idea how he'd be reacting in more private settings with his son in the Games. Suffice to say, she knew it wouldn't be with the same plastered-on smile and wink that he wore about the streets and before cameras.

Inside the gates to the Control Center, a twenty foot-high ceiling let in morning sunlight through vast skylights. Falling rays of light illuminated floating particles of dust in the large granite foyer, bouncing off formal furniture, marble floor tiles, and a large listing on the wall of the results of every Hunger Games to date. Sam noted her name and district without satisfaction, now the last listing on the long record. It wasn't a recognition she felt proud of.

Twenty other victors ranging in age from the early twenties to the elderly milled about the foyer – some freely talking as friends, others simply discussing quietly with their district partners. Sam was shocked by the nonchalance of it all. She'd expected competitiveness from those who had killed their way to victory; at least rivalry, given that the lives of their tributes were at stake. However, most of the others acted like revelers at a social greeting.

Cheyenne quickly moved off. Dallas let Finnick go, sticking around with Sam to try her hand at introductions.

"Sam, come over here," he motioned her towards one of the largest men she'd ever seen. "This is the winner of the 74th Games, a couple of years before me – Thresh. Thresh, this is Sam. You know her."

_Give my regards to Thresh_. Gale's words came back to her – so this was the man who had turned Storm's father into a ranting misanthrope. It was easy to see how he'd won; even in his late forties, Thresh commanded notice of his muscular build. He'd kept good care of his body during his time as a victor from District 11, still standing tall and proud despite years of being under the Captol's eyes.

"Yes, District 10," Thresh greeted her simply. "A good win."

"Thank you," Sam nodded, feeling drastically inferior under his stony, unmoving expression. Dallas walked off to strike up another chat, leaving the two of them to get acquainted. "So…you're from District 11, right?"

"That is correct."

Thresh's simple answer struck Sam oddly. Making conversation wasn't her specialty – and he seemed inclined to do anything but idly chat. "So…since I'm new, what's gonna happen here?"

"They explain this year's rules," Thresh answered just as flatly.

His simplistic and to-the-point replies forced Sam to keep trying. She didn't want to immediately create a rift between herself and another victor, but she had little experience making friends in her life. It had never been a serious skill of hers back in District 10, and here it seemed she was just as bad when not confronted by someone as amiable as Finnick. Thresh didn't strike her as hostile, however; it simply seemed his nature to avoid the same sort of joviality that pervaded in the foyer. "Well…that's good. So…is District 11 nice this time of year?"

"Why are you so interested in me, District 10?"

_Great, now he already thinks I'm an idiot,_ Sam thought. She took a step back, replying, "I'm just trying to get to know someone. Since I'm new."

"Curious."

"What is?"

"Your curiosity," Thresh replied. "Your colleague Dallas is the same way. He rubs off on you. Most of these others want only to talk about themselves. You do not. You ask questions, instead."

He eyed Jetty leading a tall blonde girl towards them, frowning slightly. "But it seems you have more enthusiastic introductions headed your way than myself. A pleasure."

Thresh turned and headed for a secluded area, the only victor content to stand by himself. Sam had a striking sense of realization – out of all these other victors, so content in idling about and schmoozing with each other, something about Thresh's demeanor struck a chord. Sam found him an enigma. His quiet pride, his flat, expressionless answers…they radiated apathy, even an icy chill towards the Hunger Games. Whatever he did as a victor, it didn't include ever accepting all the paper-thin accolades these people could rain down on them all.

Others were quite satisfied with accepting them.

"Welcome," the blonde girl following Jetty cooed out, her curls of hair bobbing with each step of her well-balanced body. "Our newest victor. I'm so happy to meet you!"

Sam inwardly groaned. Like Jetty, Persephone was one of the Careers who had won during their run up to the 98th Games. She represented District 1 – and had all the same flair and flamboyance to go with that lofty title. Her makeup alone probably could feed ten District 10 families for a year.

"By the way, I'm Persephone," the girl from District 1 crowed as she leaned in for a hug. Sam exchanged the greeting awkwardly, expecting anything but. "But you probably know that already."

"Yeah…of course," Sam stammered.

"Aren't you just excited to be here?" Persephone continued on, not even leaving Sam enough time for a reply. "Your first year as a mentor! It's always the special one…"

"Yeah, I bet," Sam had no desire in the idle girl-chat. It was one of many topics useful in the Capitol that she had no skills whatsoever in. "Jetty, is Finnick okay? I wanted –"

"Look, if you wanna talk about that, come find him on the Fourth Floor sometime during training or the Games," Jetty responded to Sam with an angry expression. "If that's what's bothering you, you can bring it up with him yourself. I don't think he needs someone pampering him, though."

_No need to be hostile,_ Sam thought defensively. She was striking out on forming friendships faster than people could introduce themselves.

"Oh, but look," Persephone broke away quickly, her attention already swinging as Diocletian Sulla – Rex's personal assistant who Sam had met during the Victory Tour – took up a stance on an elevated podium. "Time to listen!"

Sam had just enough time to realize she _really_ didn't like Persephone's drastically perky and self-centered demeanor before Diocletian's voice called out, high and silky like a purring lynx: "Welcome back, everyone. And to our _newest_ victor, welcome."

Diocletian's gaze fell squarely on Sam as twenty-four other heads turned. She felt her cheeks go red, shrugging her shoulders forward and trying to appear as small as possible. Sam had enough attention on her already – the last thing she wanted was more of it. The only person who didn't look at her like an animal exhibit – apart from Dallas and Cheyenne – was Thresh, still standing apart from the rest and already looking bored.

"Just a few things to go over before you all can go about your business," Diocletian said, his words sing-song like lyrics and grating against Sam's sense of normalcy. "Our Head Gamesmaker has raised the cap on per-sponsorship contributions this year, from four thousand to forty-five hundred credits per individual as the starting figure. Each day, as usual, has a twenty percent ante increase. He has also asked me to inform you all to not attempt to solicit our President."

Persephone blushed deeply.

"Finally, two things of note," Diocletian moved on. "First off, rule change this year allows for any mentor to move funds to any other mentor – thus using funds you collect for another district's mentor to use, regardless of tribute alliances."

"Why on Earth would we do that?" a voice called out – Sam recognized it as Cheyenne.

"It's the rules," Diocletian replied exasperatingly. He clearly didn't like dealing with Cheyenne, like most in the Capitol. "I read them. _Finally_, another change. All mentors are required to stay through the end of the Games in the Capitol, as opposed to the leave-as-you-lose policy of prior years."

Several groans shot up in the crowd, along with one grunt of "That's bullshit."

"It's _the rules_, Haymitch," Diocletian groaned. "Once again, I remind you all to come to me with questions or concerns about the Games between now and the announcement of a victor of the 99th Games. Head Gamesmaker Rex is off-limits unless he personally comes to you."

Sam had an idea where that was going. Rex clearly had more thoughts on his mind that just the Hunger Games –would he come after her in the next few weeks? Would he think even bigger?

"Thank you, and may the odds be _ever_ in your favor," Diocletian ended, closing with far less enthusiasm than he started.

"I've got some questions, Sulla!" Cheyenne shouted obnoxiously, drawing a few laughs.

"No you don't. Not today."

Diocletian turned and escaped as fast as he could through a door at the rear of the foyer. Persephone and Jetty went off in a babble of chatter, leaving Sam alone and looking lost amongst the other victors again. She hoped Dallas or Cheyenne would tell her where to go or what to do next, but they seemed far more interested in wasting as much time here as possible. She figured that was the norm: after all, recruiting sponsors would be impossible until the chariot parade at the least. The majority of Panem had only seen a tiny snippet of each tribute from the Reapings. Devising strategy was impossible with the tributes all under the care of the stylists until the evening.

Pounding footsteps let Sam know she had company.

"What have we here…"

A dark metallic voice sent shivers down Sam's spine. The first thing she noticed about her latest visitor – a brawny and powerful young man with colossal shoulders – was his face. His lack of any hair or eyebrows was strange enough, but the steel contraption that stuck out where his lower jaw should have been alerted Sam at once that she was dealing with the most dangerous victor around – Vespasian of District 2.

He was impossible to miss.

"Our _darling_ of the Capitol," Vespasian hissed, tugging at the skin-tight crimson shirt that left none of his upper body's definition to Sam's imagination. "Such a sweet girl with a side of killing."

The same sort of trepidation that always crept over Sam whenever Nihlus drew close returned. Vespasian struck a nerve, queuing up fear in her gut. The man from 2 certainly looked capable of killing – and his facemask left his intentions hard to decipher.

"I…don't…" Sam tried to get out.

"Of course not," Vespasian took a step forward. "You don't quite know what these Games are capable of - when you see your hopes and tributes killed. It has destroyed better people than you."

"What are you trying to say?" Sam managed to reply.

Vespasian inched his face close to hers, letting out an exhalation reeking of diseased tissue and blood. He ran a powerful hand over Sam's forehead, wiping a lock of hair away from her face and eliciting a new round of shivers from her. "I want to see you burn, Samantha. Your innocence, your naivety. You think you understand killing, but you still don't know how to take a life. When your tributes die, you will understand. I want to watch you deconstructed piece by piece…like a broken puzzle."

"What do you want with me?" Sam asked, drawing back a step from his touch.

"I am disgusted by victors you like you," Vespasian answered, his dead eyes never lifting their gaze. "The only true victor is the one who understands the inevitable death of innocence. You do not. You are a child."

"Hey!"

Cheyenne plowed into the middle of the two, snarling full of rage at Vespasian. "Get away from her, you freak."

"Such strong words for such a lost woman," Vespasian coolly retorted, stepping back with an air of arrogance. "Drowning yourself in drink and obscenities. What a waste."

"At least I _can_ drink," Cheyenne sounded off in decisively less sophisticated language. "How do you cram food in that contraption, anyway?"

"I won't dirty myself with you," Vespasian said. If he could smile, Sam figured he'd be doing it now. "But perhaps I will show you this year. Watch out for your tributes in the arena, District 10."

"Scum," Cheyenne spat as Vespasian walked away, turning towards Sam with a determined glare in her eyes. "Did he touch you?"

Sam stood petrified between Vespasian's threat towards Clara and Waco and Cheyenne's drastic response. "I, uh…"

"Never mind," Cheyenne said. "We're leaving."

She grabbed Sam's wrist, half-dragging her towards the entrance. Sam turned her head back, looking back at the other assembled victors. Vespasian's eyes followed her all the way out, his gaze never drifting from her face.

Off to the side and ignored, Thresh kept his sight on him.


	13. Superficial Appearances

Morning and afternoon faded into night as the neon glow of the Capitol illuminated an evening full of activity. A million electric bulbs lit up the City Center like a spotlight in the alpine darkness. Citizens of the great city buzzed about, a hundred thousand bees zipping to get to their seats for the chariot parade. The Hunger Games were on in the Capitol – and no one could afford to lose prestigious status points by finding themselves out of the loop.

Except Cheyenne.

"Dallas and Augusta are gonna watch by the Remake Center," she said, leading Sam around the Forum – the city square directly adjacent to the broad avenue the parade would take place on, now flocking with people headed towards the parade route. "That's a cordoned-off area for victors and escorts. You and I are gonna be at the end, by the City Circle. That's not unintentional – it's where the big-wigs sit."

Sam felt anxiety at those words as Cheyenne stopped by a food vendor in the Forum. Was she already headed into the teeth of the dragon – soliciting sponsorships at this early hour of the Games?

_If it saves Clara…_

"What do I have to do?" Sam asked.

"Play nice," Cheyenne replied, turning towards the vendor and purchasing two slim cans. "And drink this."

"What is it?"

"It'll loosen you up. Just drink it."

Sam opened the can – a novel maneuver that took her a minute to figure out – and peered inside. A bubbly yellow liquid hissed and spat within the tin, causing her to look up quizzically.

"It's yellow," she said.

"Yeah, yeah, it looks like piss," Cheyenne bemoaned. "Deal with it. It's energy. It'll keep you from nodding meekly and looking stupid."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"That's what you usually do."

Sam _hmph _-ed at her comment. She didn't _think_ she "nodded meekly and looked stupid" most of the time…but then again, she wasn't the overkill extravert that most people in the Capitol were. From their perspective, she probably seemed more like a rock rather than a person.

"Why isn't-" Sam began.

"Why isn't Dallas doing this? Do you really want me to sit with Augusta? The gladiator games haven't started _yet_…"

Cheyenne led her away from the Forum, heading up a side street and to the great steps that led to the entrances of the Avenue of the Tributes. Sam had seen the great road twice; once as a tribute down in a chariot and during the Victory Tour for one of her speeches in the City Circle. Never had she gotten a view like this, however – from the high slopes of the viewing sections, Sam could see huge swaths of the mountain city around them. Arches and skyscrapers winked at her with twinkling orange lights and neon banners. Viewers all over the Avenue seemed like one swarming colony of ants to her, a great wave of human motion ready to see the spectacle. It was a daunting – yet strangely energetic – sight.

"So, what's the whole plan tonight?" Sam asked Cheyenne once she'd regained some composure from the sight. The pair had gotten to their seats early, being two of the first people to arrive this close to the Circle. "Do we just…watch?"

"Watch, schmooze, take notes," Cheyenne explained. "Once the two kiddies go to sleep tonight, Dallas, you, and I have a long night. We're strategizing 'til early-o-clock in the morning with Agrippa, Gnaia, and…_ugh_, Augusta, then tomorrow it's Day 1 of business. You're a nice little marketing tool, so before our two guys have the chance to screw up, we need to get you out there and selling."

"Great," Sam complained. "I feel so…used."

"No rest for the weary. Besides, if you feel used now…" Cheyenne laughed after the last word. "Just wait 'til later."

_What does that entail?_ Sam thought. Being used wasn't her idea of enjoying herself. She didn't have much time to think, however – soon others came piling in to find seats as the moon rose over the alpine mountains, and she found the spotlight once more thrust upon her.

An elderly man in a garish magenta robe flanked by two middle-aged woman let out a cry of delight upon seeing Sam, walking up to her with an outstretched hand. "Miss Samantha Parker, I didn't know _you_ would be sitting with all of us!"

"Hi," Sam said sheepishly. "I don't think we've met…"

"Sextus Aelianus," the man grinned and showed a palette of far-too-white teeth. "I am a _renown_ philosopher around the Capitol. You may have heard of my theory of personal destiny?"

"Er, I don't think so…but I'd love to listen," Sam added, attempting to sidestep talking as much as possible. Sextus's two ladies in tow seemed far more than just "accompaniment," leading her to question just what kind of philosophizing this man did as he blundered his way through several verses of platonic rambling.

"And that's the gist of it," Sextus finished, after delivering far more than a gist. "But enough about _me_, young lady. You must be _very_ proud as your district's victor…ah, what district would you be from again?"

"10, District 10," Sam put on a bright smile, hoping to be away from the lecherous man as soon as possible.

"Of course, of course. I get them all confused, you see," the man replied. "And how do you like your first year returning back here for the Games? It must be a relief to get away from the barbarism you grew up in."

Sam wanted to slap the man hard across the face and hurl him off the balcony. However, it was patently clear he had money – and that was just what she needed to acquire gifts for the arena. If putting up with fools like him meant a better chance for Clara and Waco, then so be it.

"It's, ah, certainly great," Sam chirped overenthusiastically. "You all have shown me…just so much love. But it's really about our two tributes this year; they're head and shoulders above what I am. I guarantee they'll be challengers in the arena."

"Of course, of course, that is what it is all about," the old man nodded furtively. "You know, we should find each other again sometime before the Games. You are really a great young lady to talk to."

Cheyenne kicked the back of Sam's leg unobtrusively – _close the deal. Get a lead._

"Certainly," Sam agreed. "Of course, you know, I'd be forever in your debt if you could in any way help my tributes…"

"Oh, you can count on it, Samantha," the old man chuckled. "Anything for you."

He walked away with his two escorts, leaving Sam feeling dirty. Cheyenne laughed next to her, watching workers hurry off the avenue in preparation for the chariots.

"That was fun, wasn't it?" she mocked.

"Ugh," Sam groaned. "Are they all like that?"

"I had to sleep with a guy like that once to get his damn money," Cheyenne mused. "It sucked."

Sam's blue eyes bugged out of her skull. "You're saying I have to…."

"Oh, naw," Cheyenne waved the concern away. "Not unless someone forces you to. You're only sixteen. The people in the Capitol might find that acceptable, but that kinda thing should be illegal if you ask me. Just sayin'."

_Not unless someone forces you to_. Sam remembered the way Octavian had stared at her with a certain level of amusement…she could definitely think of one or two people who could force her to do that. Or dozens. The thought frightened her – how sick and twisted were these skin-deep people in the Capitol?

_They kill kids for fun, Sammy_.

Dozens of other people came up to Sam in the pre-parade festivities, asking for autographs, looking to chat, or even posing for pictures with her. She quickly grew tired of the celebrity hype, gritting her teeth and bearing through wave after wave of interested Capitol citizens. Cheyenne had been right on the mark, however; in a short time, she had a network of people to later reach out for sponsorships. Sam felt anything but a salesman – she fought anxiety through every new face – but the Capitol people were all too willing to wax sweet nothings while she nodded and chimed in with agreement. It was like talking to a plant – no work required.

As a series of scarlet-and-gold fireworks lit up the sky to indicate the first chariot launch, Sam found herself relieved of idle solicitation duties – at least for tonight. In only a little over an hour, she'd exhausted herself to the point of hurting something in her brain. Cheyenne had been little help throughout, merely telling her what she did wrong in the little time the two had to their own before someone else would come up.

A loud cheer went up through the crowd, accompanying patriotic music that thumped with pounding bass across the Avenue. Gas-fed torches atop the surrounding buildings lit up row by row as the Remake Center's heavy door opened slowly, with the black heads of two horses emerging to near-riotous applause.

"I don't think District 1 ever has any idea of what they're doing," Cheyenne noted as the first chariot launched. "It's like their fashion strategy is 'throw as many colors not found in nature together.'"

Sam had to agree. The two siblings from District 1, Sistine and Sinopia, looked awful in her eye. Decked out in orange, pink, and aqua and adorned with all numbers of strange jewels, Sam figured they had been designed as a thermonuclear assault on the crowd's sensibility. Strangely enough it seemed to work; the Capitol crowd unloaded with a pounding chant of support. The two tributes looked unfazed on the great banners that displayed their likeness, reflecting the same sort of arrogant expressions that Sam remembered so well from Royal and Fresco.

"Are they always like that?" Sam pointed towards the two. "District 1, I mean."

"Most of the time," Cheyenne nodded. "Their female mentor, Persephone, she's not bad. Just way too talky, but at least she doesn't judge much. If you get her and Jetty together, though, it's non-stop action."

"I met her. How about their other mentor?"

"Eros? He's an asshole. Sucks up to Sulla."

District 2's tributes looked the opposite of their Career brethren. Nyx and Commodus appeared as gods of war, each adorned in bronze armor and ancient battle helmets that reflected Olympian ferocity and rage. The Capitol once more exploded in an outpouring of love for the frequently-winning district. Sam felt nothing but anger – between her experiences with Hadrian's murder of Gannet the year before and now after her confrontation with Vespasian, District 2 was carving out a black niche of hatred in her heart.

"Oh, come on, that's bullshit," Cheyenne raged as District 4 emerged, eliciting stares from nearby patrons. "They're weaponizing them already! If Sulla wasn't an insufferable prick, I'd go complain for a recall."

Sam noticed her complaint. Firth and Scylla came out as sea nymphs from clothing alone – adorned in skimpy swaths of kelp-like fabric that left almost nothing to the imagination. In each of their outside hands, however, they held long gold tridents. The crowd went wild, hurling flowers and calling out their names. Sam noticed something odd in particular, though – both Scylla and Firth had retreated to the far ends of their chariot, seemingly maximizing the distance between them.

_Not getting along?_ she wondered. That was a pertinent disadvantage for them if so – and something to capitalize on as soon as possible. If District 4 had a rift – in particular, if Firth wasn't up for playing the Career game – then she had to push Clara to draw the battle lines and swing the favorable one to her side. She silently hoped it was Firth; Scylla looked aggressive and ruthless with the weapon, as if she wanted to leap out of the chariot and start stabbing onlookers.

_Thank goodness it's not River_, Sam remembered Gannet's little sister. She probably wouldn't have made it through sane had the little girl been tossed into this mess along with Clara and Finnick's son. It was already bad enough.

The next five districts provided all sorts of bland affair. Sam couldn't even figure out what the shimmering designs of District 5 and 6 were meant to represent, regardless of the fact that they did nothing impressive. It seemed to her as if their stylists had just slapped glitter on fancy cloth and called it a costume. All too quickly, the heads of District 10's white horses emerged out of the Remake Center, and Sam closed her eyes.

"I can't watch," she said nervously to Cheyenne.

Cheyenne stood quietly for a moment in thought before sizing Clara and Waco up. "I don't get it."

Sam ventured a look. Waco looked a hundred kinds of nervous with a face full of tension. Clara on the other hand seemed to be legitimately enjoying herself. While Sam remembered the infections energy of the crowd, Clara played the part perfectly in blowing kisses, waving happily, and looking physically stunning. The prep team had done a marvelous job as her blonde hair flowed like silk behind her, no trace of the grit and dirt of the district that Clara often bore remaining.

She couldn't figure out the costume either, however. Agrippa and Gnaia appeared to have adorned the two in tan gowns that swirled with dusty patterns, reflecting the pervasive environment of the town. Why choose that, though? The motion inherent in the fabric was impressive – Sam fondly recalled the dress she'd worn, made to convey the prairie wind – but dust was _not_ attractive.

"Oh, that's weird."

Without warning, Clara's gown transformed before Sam's eyes. It blossomed with greens and flowers and shadows of life, awakening and birthing before the crowd. A number of _ooh_s drowned out the entrance of the District 11 tributes who Sam totally ignored. Now she understood Agrippa's motivation, much like the tattoos he had patterned across his own body; the garments represented the rise of something better and the emergence of life and animals from the dust of District 10. Sam was impressed: she couldn't think of innovative ideas for a district that specialized in cutting up meat products, but here Agrippa had succeeded again.

Her heart jumped as an unwelcome figure made his appearance.

From the top of the Presidential Mansion's balcony, President Octavian strode out to cheers of delight. He waved his hands in the air as District 12's chariot made its way into the circle, calming the legions of adoring citizens who watched from below.

"Thank you and welcome," Octavian spoke in the accented voice Sam knew and feared all too much by now. "Welcome tributes – or should I say, _Happy Hunger Games_. We honor your appearance and representation in the 99th Games."

He turned his head towards one side of the crowd before scanning the other – and for a brief second, Sam felt a wave of sickness as he appeared to lock eyes with her, a slight smile touching his lips.

"And may the odds be ever in your favor," he finished, keeping his eyes set just long enough to speak the words before returning them to the chariots.

"Time to go," Cheyenne said, rising to her feet as the crowd cheered. "We have to get down there to get those two off."

Sam felt entirely ready as Octavian kept waving. She longed to get away from his presence, to escape back to some isolated corner where the snake of a man wouldn't find her. Yet there he stood, presiding over a nation that chanted and screamed for more – for _his_ Games. He, who would watch either Clara or Waco – not to mention Firth and the other tributes – die this year with only a smile and a chuckle.

Cheyenne led the two down the viewing platforms, skirting down an aisle and reaching the side of the training center. She flashed a nod to a trio of black-clad Peacekeepers, ushering Sam through a low-slung pair of doors. The cavernous bay of the Training Center expanded before them as the first chariots came through.

"Were you entertained?" a low voice came from Sam's left.

Loitering against the bay's wall stood Thresh, looking rather bored by the entire preceding. His eyes stared off into nothingness, unfocused and seemingly somewhere else.

"It was alright," Sam said plainly. "How about you?"

"Superficial," Thresh replied flatly. "As always."

The thunderous roar of the hovercraft fly-by accompanied Clara and Waco's chariot as it entered the bay. Sam left Cheyenne to make her way over, hurrying to greet the two as soon as they pulled to a stop.

"You two were great!" she exclaimed, helping Waco off the chariot as Agrippa, Gnaia, Dallas, and Augusta walked up "Everyone loved it. You both look stunning."

"Thank you, Sam," Clara smiled brightly, accepting a big hug from her friend. "I don't think I can really look like this at home, though."

"Fantastic, dears," Augusta crowed in agreement. "I am _sure_ it will be all anyone's talking about by tomorrow."

"Doesn't matter," Cheyenne broke in to damper the good spirits. "We've got other problems."

She subtly tossed her head in the direction of the District 2 team, huddled around Vespasian's grisly form. All of them had heads turning at one point or another towards Clara and Waco, seemingly lusting already to make a kill. Vespasian's words rang back to Sam – _Watch out for your tributes in the arena, District 10_.

"What do you think they're talking about?" Agrippa asked.

"I know what they're talking about," Cheyenne hissed, seeing through the glances and realizing the same point Sam did. "Nothing good; a lot of bad. Let's go."


	14. A Crisis of Faith

_**A/N: Like to take the time to thank my reviewers; particularly cynicz and caramellachoco, who've been so dang good ever since "Dust." Every review helps – so people who aren't reviewing but reading (the stats say most of you…) while I thank you for your continued following, please let me know what I can improve on and what you like/don't like/abhor/want to sacrifice me to Ba'al over. Only through feedback can I develop and help deliver a better story and series to all readers.**_

_**Gah that sounded so formal. On a less formal vein, I can't believe I'm at chapter 14 with no Games yet. I keep meaning to hit the fast-forward button because I have a pimpin' arena in mind, but I also want to build the character dynamics. Catch-22.**_

* * *

Sam, her fellow mentors, the stylists, and Augusta sat around the large dining room table deep into the heart of the night. Cheyenne and Augusta had worn off some of the rust, at least arguing without caustic words anymore. Still, no real progress was made onto a coherent strategy – although Sam had revealed that Waco and Clara wanted to team up, the wide gulf of traits between the two led to all sorts of problems in determining how to present them to sponsors.

"I still don't know where you were going with the costumes," Dallas had been questioning the choice of chariot outfits ever since the two tributes went to bed. "I understand there's room for…some sort of rebirth theme there, but we're talking about a crowd that, if they know District 10 at all, it's beef and pork."

"They understand _art_," Gnaia countered. Sam hadn't heard her speak much before now – as she had been Laredo's stylists, the two had had little interaction before this point. "It's the surface that counts."

"The people will _love_ them," Augusta chimed in. "Don't you worry."

"I don't know, just," Dallas shook it off. "I don't know how you try and market that. I don't really have your optimism."

"Honestly, I can just sell the girl on sex appeal," Cheyenne muttered over a cup of coffee. "Way easier than last year."

"Hey!" Sam interjected, angry at Cheyenne's remark. "Clara's not just a sex object."

"Would you _calm down?_" she retorted. "It's brand awareness, not a freakin' morality pageant."

"Hate to say it Sam, but she's right," Dallas nodded. He looked tired over a frosted roll that sat lonely on a plate. "Clara's pretty. We can catch some of the male demographic with that."

"What kind of age cohort, you think?" Cheyenne added. "20-34?"

"I'm concerned they won't have enough money," Dallas countered. "We can try, but I'd say 65+ for physical marketing. Maybe the 50-64. The younger middle-age guys are out of the question for her, unless she scores a nine or better in training. They're much more pragmatically-inclined. I couldn't land a single one last year."

"I can't believe what I'm hearing," Sam spoke up, aghast at the casual way Cheyenne and Dallas tossed around Clara's looks like a utensil. "She's still a person."

Augusta piped up before she could continue on. "Samantha, dear, why don't you get some sleep? You look like you could use some rest before a big day tomorrow."

Looks from around the five told Sam that her response wasn't a question. She got out of her chair loudly, pushing it back into the table with a rough shove and headed off towards the bedrooms. As she passed into the hallway, she stopped and sat down, tucking her knees to her chest and letting out a long, slow exhale. It was something Jake had taught her after she'd come back from the Games – to take a few moments in the thick of a sticky situation to recover and collect her thoughts. Rather than compile stress, he'd taught her to deal with pent-up emotions. It had resulted in a lot more teary sessions in recollecting horrific memories, but Sam admitted that it felt better than holding everything in.

Cheyenne didn't make it easier; however, speaking up just as Sam went out of sight. "Can somebody honestly talk to her? She's freaking out about everything. I cannot _deal_ with that without some seriously strong drinks, and all we have right here is coffee and wine."

"Dallas and I will calm her down," Agrippa assured her. "Tomorrow, sometime before her interview with Constantine. If she's too wound-up, she won't be any good."

_Inhale. Exhale._ Sam wanted to punch something – so she was just a thing too; just like Clara, to be objectified and paraded about. She figured she would have learned it from her own experience as a tribute, but it hit home with far more force coming from voices she trusted.

Sam plodded down the hall towards her vacant room when Waco popped out of his, looking in need of a friend.

"Hey," Sam greeted him quietly and with a soft smile. "Can't sleep?"

"It's too bright," he confirmed.

"I know. The lights never really go off," Sam nodded, although she suspected it was far more than that. She hadn't really noticed Waco much before now, but the boy was small. He was neither the muscled behemoth type that came out of District 2 nor even the lanky kinds from the middle districts. He was simply young and unprepared for the kind of sacrificial alter that the Hunger Games were. Rather than showing the fearless and brawny attitude of many of the male competitors, fear and anxiety were written all over his face.

Sam felt bad. She'd spent all of her energy to the point on Clara, completely ignoring Waco. She'd found it easy to forget him and to treat him like just another part of the Games – and all that while she objected to Dallas and Cheyenne's unattached strategizing of Clara's appeal.

_You hypocrite, Sam_.

She walked into his room and turned down the ambient lighting, shading out the window and casting an evening look to the décor before trying to start a conversation. "Look, um…since we have a little privacy, is everyone treating you okay? I know it's been a lot to digest over the last two days, and the other guys can be…kinda frantic."

He nodded slowly, taking a seat on his bed. The shadows of the dark room cast an unnatural pallor over his high cheekbones, making him like gaunt and lean. "Some of the other kids don't seem so happy."

"Anybody in particular?" Sam inquired.

"Most of them are bigger than me," he admitted honestly. "Most are older, too."

"It's not about big or small, young or old," Sam tried to help him relax. "One of my allies was the smallest girl in the arena last year. She did more than I ever could."

"The one from 4?" he asked, to Sam's nod. "What was it like when…"

"When she…died?" Sam forced the question. "I miss her a lot. I met her little sister on my tour in the winter. It brought me back to all that…it still hurts. But I think she found a little happiness from our alliance, even when we were all scared. It's scary, I know. Last year I was just the same way…just a lot of crying in that room Clara's in now. But I'm still here…don't ever give up on yourself, Waco. I won't give up on you."

"I'm not. I mean, I won't," he said. "I just don't really have a lot to look forward to."

"Think about when you win," Sam tried to cheer him up. "Then you and your father never have to worry about anything like being hungry again."

"My Dad doesn't really care about me. He didn't even come to say goodbye."

Sam felt a rock drop in her gut. She'd tied in parallels between her and the small boy from the Dairy Ward, but the similarities were getting creepy. "Well…I'll have a new neighbor in the Victor's Village at least, then. Someone else to share the joy of Cheyenne. Yay!"

He laughed, eliciting a happy feeling in Sam. "Is she that bad?"

"She grows on you. At least she stopped smoking…but Dallas is really nice. Once you come back, he'll help you through anything you need…and I'll be there, too."

Sam felt dirty for her empty words. She knew very well she intended to get Clara through the Games alive, yet here she was telling sweet white lie after lie to ease Waco's nerves. Was this how the Games were for mentors? A constant series of interwoven fallacies meant to relax the guilt of sending kids to certain death…year after year after year? She already despised herself after two days of mentoring. Add a half-dozen years and she'd be a nervous wreck, splurging on hard liquor or tobacco just like Cheyenne.

_Like mentor, like protégé. How fitting._

Still, it had done its trick: Waco seemed visibly relaxed. "Well…thanks, Sam. Thanks for coming by. I think Clara needs you more, though. She's been up all night too. I've heard her through the vent."

_Oh boy_, Sam thought. That didn't sound good at all. "I'll make sure she's okay. You just get some sleep…tomorrow's important."

She trotted out of his room and rounded the corner to the last hallway, stepping up to the first door. Clara was quite clearly awake – and upset.

"Clara? It's Sam."

"_Go away!_"

_Not good_. Clara had fortunately left the door unlocked, letting Sam hit the access button and open the sliding door into the wall. Inside was a disaster zone.

Blankets and sheets lay strewn about the room, tossed about like detritus from a tornado. Pieces of ceramic – Sam couldn't even guess about what that had come from – formed a minefield near the door to the bathroom. Clara herself huddled on the floor next to her bed, her arms wrapped about her knees and curled up in as small a position as possible. She hung her head down into her legs as Sam entered, determined not to make eye contact.

"I don't want…" Clara tried to say something, lost in between tears and rushing emotions. "I don't…"

"Clara, it's okay," Sam hurried to rectify the situation before it spiraled out of control. _See, Dallas and Cheyenne, this is what you get when you get too ahead of yourselves and think you understand everything_. _We're all still people_. _We all still have feelings_.

"It's not okay," she whimpered. "I made a mess."

Sam pulled her in for a hug, wiping a tear-streaked piece of hair out of her eyes. "Don't worry about things like that. It's hard. I know."

"I wanna go home, Sam," Clara sniffed. "I'm scared and I hate this place and the people are weird and I don't wanna die. I just wanna go _home_."

Clara let loose another fit of tears into Sam's chest. Sam finally opened her eyes inside for all the things she'd missed during her Games – this was what the Games were about. It wasn't some entertainment device or even trying to leverage political control in the petty spats of power that Octavian and Rex engaged in. This was the raw and naked truth of Panem, laid bare for her to see in its most wretched form. The Hunger Games, at their core, were about destroying people – reducing them from whomever they had been into either fearful and frightened victims or cold-hearted mercenary killers.

_I was the latter_, Sam thought. _Who does Clara become?_

Just days ago, Clara had been her usual bright and bold self – frightened of nothing, willing to confront anyone in District 10 over a slight, and more than happy to pick up Sam when she needed a lift. Now she had collapsed on the floor of a room in the Capitol, a shell of her past life that had already faded long ago in the mirror. If she won, she'd never get it back.

It was odd to Sam. Odd – odd that Panem and the Capitol had built themselves on destroying the many for the indulgences of the few. Was this how humanity had always been? Always ready to sacrifice those who had never mattered to a smattering of elite, all too willing to toss aside heaps of chaff to find one kernel of interest – itself only shimmering until it expired of usefulness? This wasn't civilized. This was a den of devils.

"You will go home," Sam found herself having to be strong again, as much as she herself wanted to get away from this hell. "You will. It'll be hard and you'll hurt on the inside, but we'll both go back to the forest and the pond after all this is over."

"I'm just letting everyone down," Clara cried. "I'm supposed to be a tribute and tough and I'm just losing it everywhere."

"No, no," Sam soothed. "No one's let down by you. Your family's proud of you. Clay's proud of you. I am too. The whole district is. We all need to let it out sometimes."

"But this isn't _like_ me, I never do this…"

"Shhh," Sam smoothed her hair over her head. "It'll be hard, but you'll make it through. I'll be here for you every step of the way. I'll keep you safe."

_Lies born of weakness_. _You already failed her_.

Sam flipped her eyes around, inhaling sharply. Where had that thought come from? It hadn't been in her typical voice, no – instead, Nihlus had seeped into her mind, infecting her with a poison of accusatory shame. She'd never heard him say those words, but it _had _been his tone as clear as day in her head. Was she going mad?

The worst part about it was…he was right. She had failed here. Clara was falling apart on the floor because _she_ couldn't keep her mouth shut, because _she_ had decided to ignore the warnings of a much more powerful foe. Now she was paying for it – by watching her friend dissected into a soup of unrestrained emotional energy.

With some effort and time, Sam worked Clara back to her bed and pulled the blankets back up. She grabbed the window remote, taking the view away from the city of sin below and bringing up a picture of a wind-swept grassy plain under a sea of stars. It was the best she could think of for her homesick friend – the only way to give her a passing moment of peace.

"When I was here last year," Sam hung on to Clara's hand as if she'd never let go, willing her to go to sleep. "Just after the parade, the girl from District 1 looked at me like she wanted to kill me. The boy from our district, Laredo…he didn't like me much, so we had kinda a chilly dinner. When I went to bed, I just stared out the window and didn't know what I was going to do. I couldn't see the stars – hadn't figured out this remote yet – and I didn't know if I would ever see home again. I didn't know anybody and it was all so different."

"But I started to meet people the next day. I met Storm and Gannet, who were with me in the arena and made even the worst of times there bearable. I figured out how to work with Dallas and Cheyenne. It got better, little by little – even when it seemed like it was just all falling in. It'll be okay, Clara. We'll go home together again."

Clara pulled the blanket up, turning on her side. "Mm. You'll be a good mom one day, Sam."

"Gee, thanks," she laughed softly. "Now I feel old."

She stuck around until Clara's breath came out slow and measured, fading off into sleep. As Sam turned to leave her room, the dark thoughts entered her head once more.

_Take a good look at her before you kill her, Miss Parker_.


	15. Cold Winds Blowing

_**A/N: Gonna be doing something new starting from this chapter and increasing more as we pick up steam – since the majority of the excitement of the Games themselves stems from the action in the arena, I'll be framing parts in Clara's point of view and interspersing them within Sam's ongoing perspective. It'll ensure that the story shows enough of a frame of reference to encapsulate all the ongoings within the last days of the tributes while not taking too much time away from our protagonist.**_

* * *

Sam had expected the call, but not so soon – not on just the first day of tribute training.

All too quickly a Capitol executive attendant had showed up on the tenth floor of the Training Center just after Clara and Waco had gone off to begin in the gymnasium below. Her presence was needed urgently, he'd said – and she had to follow him immediately. No other option was given.

It hadn't been a surprise to Sam when they'd ended up at the Presidential Mansion.

The attendant took her up a winding series of stairs, past a bright yellow foyer rimmed by paintings of Capitol landmarks and triumphs and illustrations of historical moments long since forgotten to history. White-clad Peacekeepers stepped aside as hallway merged into hallway, passing through enough crimson-walled tunnels to make Sam wonder just how many miles this labyrinth of a building encapsulated. At last the attendant reached a gold-rimmed door set in a gray marble foundation, stepping to one side and offering his hand as an indication to step forward.

"He will see you," said the man, giving Sam all she needed to know.

The inside of the President's personal quarters shocked Sam. She'd expected harsh lights, symbols of power, or other drastically grandiose presentations of astonishing wealth and strength. Instead, a carpet of grass stretched out for twenty meters, lined with a brown dirt path that ended after a short stretch in eight different directions – like a wheel spoke. A bright blue sky with a warm white sun hung overhead, with green fields littered with grape vineyards reaching towards a hilly horizon. Behind Sam, the door she'd just come through formed seamlessly into a low-slung brick building with a long wine rack to her left, filled with a hundred dark bottles.

"The _Route des vins_," President Octavian emerged out of what looked like an outhouse directly before Sam, closing the door behind him. She saw through the opening just enough to get a glimpse of what lay on the other side – a wide balcony overlooking the great Capitol Forum. "A reminisce of the Alsace region. Charming, don't you think, Samantha? It is truly wonderful what technology can do when applied with such grace."

"What is this place?" Sam asked, barely aware of her wide-eyed staring into every direction. Her heart thumped out of nervousness of being so close alone with the President – his serpentine demeanor infecting her thoughts and mind.

"My home," Octavian strolled over to the wine rack, perusing over his selection before picking out a clear bottle. "_Oui_, I know what you are thinking. Not the Capitol architecture, no?"

"Where in Panem is this?" Sam inquired. "What District?"

Octavian laughed as he poured himself a glass of white wine, replacing the bottle deftly back in the rack and moving the glass to his lips. "Impeccable, as always. But this is not in our world Samantha, no. This is a snapshot of the grandeur we of humanity buried a long time ago. You think you live today in what can truly be called a countryside…but I say that you are wrong. This is what countryside is meant to be: civilized, immaculate. Without flaw."

Sam disagreed with that assessment. She saw one very keen flaw in all the bright surroundings; she'd take District 10 with its problems every time over this verdant land with the snake-like President standing before her.

"Why am I here?"

"So quick to get to business," Octavian chided. "You have plenty of time for that, what with your artistic tributes. Can you explain me that thematic choice during the parade? I must admit I was stumped."

"I don't really plan the costumes," Sam shrugged nervously. What was he waiting to say? "I can't really tell you."

"Pity," the President commented. "But no matter. I am sure you will earn plenty in their names – or in your name. Cause, effect. You win, you are young – causes. They produce inevitable effects. Like why you are here – you win, you come here. Maybe not every time, but this cause has sprung this effect. It is the only constant in our universe, and thus inescapable. Just like another cause I have foreseen coming…one which requires a more subtle effect in which you are a piece; something I can use."

_Here it comes_, Sam thought. She knew quite well Octavian hadn't brought her here for no reason. While she'd suspected far less sophisticated reasons than his idle talk so far, he most certainly had a plan.

"What am I supposed to do?"

Octavian laughed loudly, spilling wine onto the ground. "This is not a death sentence, Samantha. You have already won in the arena and I have no reason to execute you yet. I hope you don't give me cause…"

He took another drink before going on, letting that last line settle in Sam's stomach like an uninvited house guest. "While you recruit people to give you money for your children, I must earn favors. It is business, you see – the same business you yourself must operate in, only on a far more advanced level. Causality at work again, only from a presidential standpoint. It is an unavoidable byproduct of the position…quite a drag, don't you think?"

_Earn favors?_ "Uh…I guess so."

"_S'il te plait_, Samantha, I do not mind opinions – as long as they are not dangerous," Octavian remarked. "But it is that fine line of security I walk. Thus I need _you_ to serve as the intermediary in earning my favors. I have a military commandant…a Commander Trajan. He is a good man, but I fear he has too many voices trying to win his head – this is something I cannot have. However, I know quite well enough that forcing his hand through punishment will only breed resentment, and killing him for no quantifiable reason will earn me no favors in the military. _Par suit_, the only way to solve this predicament is through placing the winning bid – it is the quintessential political game. My bid is you."

Goosebumps worked their way up Sam's arms as Octavian spoke. She knew why he wanted her now – not for himself, but to cast about like a lure to quench the wants of other powerbrokers. Once again she was a tool, and now locked in a far more repulsive cycle. Here in Panem's bed of power, no one would care about the struggles of one teenage girl from District 10 – regardless of being a victor or not.

She swallowed a lump in her throat, forcing her to speak in a slow, measured pace. "You…want me to…"

"Yes. Do as he wants – you are his gift from me tonight. Ensure that he accepts that. Trajan is a simple man, despite his status. He appreciates those who appreciate him."

Sam felt her head swimming with this alarming realization. "But…but I…"

"It is as all things are, Samantha," Octavian gave her a sickening smile. "Inescapable."

* * *

**Training Center Gymnasium**

As soon as the training instructor had finished his unenthused directions to the assembled tributes on the first day of training, Clara had made a beeline towards the Gauntlet. The ascending and descending series of platforms didn't seem to give her much practical knowledge, but it looked fun to the girl – and unlike Sam the year before, she was in far less of a mood to patiently explore practical knowledge in the slower stations such as edible plants and fire starting.

After purging her emotions the previous night with Sam by her side, Clara felt renewed and ready to begin today. At least in training she had control over what happened; in the arena, it'd be the same way. It was the slow times by herself, the downtime when she was left to thought, that hurt Clara the most. She was the social butterfly to Sam's introspective caterpillar, far more excited about the doing than the thinking.

So when Nyx from District 2 lined up directly behind her for trying her skills out on the Gauntlet, scoffing something to her district partner Commodus about "uppity rag-tags from the shit districts not knowing their place," Clara paid it no heed. What did she care what the butch Career thought?

"First up," the lead trainer at the station called out as two more trainers flanked the double row of platforms with padded clubs.

Clara hopped deftly to the first platform on the right, planting both feet firmly on its fibrous surface. Thousands of hours of steadying herself from horseback left her with masterful spatial control of a shaky situation like this, and maneuvering from platform to platform posed no real challenge. She barely saw the first club coming, but it swung in just as she took off for the next row. The trainer missed low and Clara cut away from, skipping and hopping along the Gauntlet. The second trainer overestimated Clara's foot speed based on her earlier quick jumps, swinging before she'd made a judgment on the next leap and missing cleanly. Clara finished off the Gauntlet with a well-executed group of jumps, flashing a confidant grin towards Nyx.

Beside the arrogant girl from District 2, the siblings from 1 – Sistine and Sinopia – both nodded and passed words to each other. They seemed duly impressed.

"Where'd you learn to do that?" the boy from District 4 with the short-cropped bronze hair – Firth, that had been the name Dallas and Sam had said – idled nearby, watching the tributes as they went to their first stations.

"Natural," Clara smiled. Firth had the looks down, no questions asked. "Why aren't you doing anything?"

"Sometimes it's better to watch. Tells you what everyone else thinks," Firth replied, his eyes lazily sweeping over the gym. "Like that girl from 7 over there – I think her name's Willow. Nobody at the axe station but her, and she just chopped a dummy's head off. Not so subtle, huh?"

"I guess so," Clara shrugged, missing the point. "You're, uh…what's-that-guy's-name's kid, right?"

Firth laughed loudly. "Yeah. I'm 'what's-that-guy's-name's kid.' Caught me red-handed. Actually I'm Firth, but who'd you meet who was fawning over my dad?"

"Oh, no," Clara said. "My mentors know your dad, I guess. He's Finnick, right?"

"Yeah. Your mentors and pretty much everybody else," Firth replied. "I'm gonna go over to the knots station. I can only watch these other guys on the Gauntlet for so long."

"Aren't you a Career too, though?" Clara asked, following him whether he liked it or not. "Why aren't you with them?"

"We're 'Careers?' That's news," Firth smiled, showing off a mouth full of shiny teeth. "I don't really like them. I couldn't give a dead squid whether or not we're supposed to team up. I guess I don't play by the rules. Nyx is a bossy bitch and my district-mate, Scylla, is repulsive. Haven't met the kids from 1…don't think I want to."

"I guess that's a good reason."

"Do you like hanging around unpleasant people in life-or-death situations? Me neither."

Clara attempted to listen to the knots instructor for a few idle minutes as Firth completely blew him off, working his way through a series of extremely complicated patterns more out of finding something to do rather than learning anything. Much to Clara's dismay, her years of tying lariats to rope cattle didn't translate to tying the things expected here. Firth looked on, amused.

"It's a bowline. Not complicated," he spoke up after her fifth failure, grabbing his own rope for demonstration. "Rabbit comes out the hole, around the tree, and back in the hole."

Clara nearly keeled over laughing. "Wait, wait, how did you get a rabbit out of that?"

"I dunno. Just the way I learned," Firth said with a sly grin. "I don't think you ever told me your name…"

"Clara. District 10."

"Well Clara, if the only thing at the Cornucopia is a bunch of rope for tying knots in, you're gonna be in trouble, huh?"

"That'd be a really exciting arena," Clara said sarcastically. "Is it a sailing competition?"

"I hope so, no way I'm losing that," Clay chuckled. "Listen, are you…with anybody else in this? District partner or anything?"

"Nope," Clara answered all too quickly before remembering Waco. She shot a glance in his direction – he was easily the smallest boy in the gym and one of the smallest tributes overall. He didn't look to be doing so well over at the edible plants station; compared to Firth, however, what was he? But she couldn't just leave him…

"Well then," Firth said. "I think-"

"Wait, sort of," Clara hurried to correct herself. She felt guilty for leaving Waco hanging. "The boy I came with…over there…he and I kinda talked about…you know, teamwork."

"Oh. I see," Firth said, his expression lowering. "Okay then. I'm gonna go figure out how to shoot something…good meeting you, Clara."

She watched him walk off without another word, mentally slapping herself. _Way to go, Clara. That's just the opposite of what Sammy told you to do._

* * *

Evening came at the Capitol and Sam found herself adorned in a far-too-skimpy black cocktail dress, escorted by a pair of white-clad Peacekeepers down the side of the Forum. She nervously felt a hundred stares in her direction as she pawed at her tight attire, wishing she was anywhere but in the public eye of every Capitol citizen out and about on a warm summer night with the Hunger Games underway. Far more daunting was what lay ahead, however.

She found her thoughts idling on other, simpler things to take her mind off the problem. She wondered how Clara had done on the first day of training – had she made any friends besides Waco? That'd be key to her success, just as it had been to Sam's. She played with her hair, annoyed at the long and straight style that deviated from her usual simple ponytail.

The Peacekeepers kept her right on moving, however. They turned down a side street and emerged into a smaller avenue lined with expensive row houses. People still flocked about everywhere, with every single one of them getting a bird's eye view of Sam and her two stone-faced escorts. They reached a particularly unobtrusive two-story house after a few minutes, completely unremarkable to Sam except for something odd on the top of the crimson door – a beam of light ran across the frame, bright blue and interrupted at points with small, flickering dots.

One of the Peacekeepers stepped up to the door. Sam expected him to knock, but what happened next caught her by surprise. A small globe – an eye, really – flew out of a hole that opened in the wall. It snapped open a lens, eying the Peacekeeper with machine-like suspicion.

"On behalf of the President," the Peacekeeper began. "I-"

The drone belched something unintelligible and zipped back into the hole before he had time to continue. The Peacekeeper looked annoyed and turned back to Sam: "Go in."

Sam's heart thumped like a jackhammer as she stepped through the unlocked door. Metal track lighting illuminated a simple contemporary guest room adorned with basic furnishings. White walls refined a sense of modesty, almost boredom, in the house. Compared to the surroundings – and especially Octavian's expensive mansion – this place appeared plain.

"Hello?" she called out into the home nervously.

"What is it?" a male voice called out.

Sam took hesitant steps towards a bright kitchen and living room, peeking her head through the entranceway. Looking out the back window stood Trajan, not even turning around as she entered.

"Um," she stumbled at the sight of the man, short and powerful with his military tattoos clearly visible down his arms. "I…the President…"

"I know who sent you," Trajan noted flatly. "I know what he wants."

The military commandant turned around, eying Sam's look. "He thinks me remarkably shallow, apparently."

Sam felt small beneath his disapproving gaze. "I don't, uh…I don't know what I'm supposed to do."

Trajan walked over to his sink, pouring himself a glass of water and giving himself a full minute to size up the situation. Every second ticked away like a lifetime in Sam's head. She ran her hand over her dress, smoothing out the odd wrinkle aimlessly while awaiting the inevitable.

_I'm a slave. I'm a tool for people in the Capitol to throw about and use until I'm worn out. This man gets the first pick…and then the floodgates open to any and all. It's the first step to destroying any dignity I have left_.

"Go tell Octavian I'm not interested," Trajan spoke up after a while. "I'm not interested in their little games. There's nothing I need from a sixteen year-old from District 10."

Sam panicked. "No – no, I can't go back. He'll hurt me, or worse…please, I can't…just do what you want with me."

Trajan sighed and set his glass down, looking at his kitchen table with a knowing look. "Then sit."

She took a shaky seat in a high-backed oak chair, her arms quivering with anxiety. _Inhale, exhale_…but it didn't work. Trajan's methodical appraisal of Octavian's "gift" left Sam more nervous than she had been around the Cornucopia.

"Something to drink?" he offered.

"No, thank you," Sam replied. She didn't think she'd be _able_ to hold down something, much less want to.

"Suit yourself," Trajan remarked. He reached under the cupboards below the sink, pulling out a small silver orb. Before Sam had a chance to wonder what it was, he pressed a single icon on its polished frame and tossed it up on the air. It burst into a million parts, invisible as a cloud that spread out in all directions.

"Swarm drone," he answered her inquisitive glance. "Absorbs noise. It'll let us talk in peace."

He took a seat opposite her, noticing her shivering. "Can I call you Sam?"

"Most people do," she whispered.

"Very well," he answered. "What do you know about our Head Gamesmaker?"

Sam looked up with a frightened expression. "I…suppose he makes good Games."

"Really? I don't believe you," Trajan said. "Your district's Head Peacekeeper used to lie to make me happy. Wanted to crack down on you all…I disagreed. He's dead."

Sam felt sick. He was the man – he'd shot Sidon that day she'd first met Nihlus in the dead of winter.

"I don't think he and our President get along."

"Putting it lightly," Trajan mused. "Now how about our President…what do you think of Octavian? Obviously he sent you here under rather explicit terms…"

"He's a little intimidating," Sam said. "But he's our President, right? Why are you asking me, if you don't mind me wondering?"

"Nothing to lose," Trajan answered flatly. "I have few confidants inside the Capitol, and fewer I can trust to see the things in motion. You're from the Districts and favored by both Rex and Octavian – you provide a fresh perspective. A good commander takes information from various points of view to make a decision."

"Why does that matter?"

"You said it yourself," Trajan explained. "Octavian and Rex don't get along. Sooner or later things will come to a crisis point, and I'm going to have to take sides. They won't co-exist forever. The Capitol's on the path to implosion."

Sam looked aghast – he was questioning these two pivotal figures in Panem – to her? In the open, and even implying some sort of civil war?

"Why would you come to me for advice on that?" Sam tried to steer the conversation into less-hostile waters. "I'm just a girl from District 10."

"I didn't come to you, but you're here now; why waste an opportunity to ask? Rex thinks you're like him," Trajan muttered. "Computational and without remorse. He probably wants to run you through his endless labs, turn you into a machine that he can control. Octavian wants you as some sort of play toy. Thus, you're in the thick of things – whether you like it or not. I'm not stupid enough to ask for tactical advice from a kid. I just want your opinion."

"Look, I don't know what you think I'm supposed to be," Sam felt brave enough to try and hold her position. "But I'm just trying to get one of my tributes out of the Games. I don't want to…to start anything between anybody."

"That's disappointing," Trajan replied after a pause. "It's your choice, I suppose. But I don't have that opportunity. I need to understand whether Rex or Octavian will lead Panem better."

Sam hesitated, pawing at her dress again and wishing it would cover her up entirely. "Is it really going to come to that?"

"It will," Trajan nodded. "And I'll give you a word of warning. One of them – or both – is going to come after you. You might think you're just some girl from an outlying district – on the outside, I think that as well. However, the only thing that matters in the real games we play are what the important pieces think."

He picked up his glass of water, standing up from his seat and pushing the chair back in. "I'm going to retire; feel free to stay as long as you want. There's nothing you could glean from here, anyway – and you don't trust Octavian, either; you wouldn't tell even if you had to. I'd advise you choose your battles wisely, Sam. Sooner or later, we're all going to have to."


	16. Midnight Hearts

The next three days passed quickly as Sam found herself shuffled between coaching Clara alongside Dallas and speaking to an ever-changing turntable of wealthy patrons and Capitol citizens. An interview with Caesar sparked the cascading chain of events from day two of training, descending down towards the release of scores and the ammunition she'd need Clara and Waco to garner if they had a chance at coming off well to the more pragmatic sponsors.

Clara came through; Waco didn't. She'd seen it coming – where Clara had picked up steam like an onrushing locomotive through the training days, Waco had dimmed and pulled away from attracting attention. She'd learned skills, handled weapons (particularly excelling at range with arrows and javelins) and met other tributes. Waco had stuck to himself, only talking with Clara and spending far more time on "passive" skills than venturing off to the physical or weapon stations. When Clara pulled in a nine and Waco a four, Sam wasn't surprised. She didn't dismiss the boy – after all, she'd only received a five; Gannet a four – but now as a mentor, it would be far easier to promote Clara as a capable tribute able to hold her own.

The best score of training didn't surprise Sam either.

Clara had spoken at lengths of Firth's charisma after the first two days of training – and it hadn't been limited to her. He'd met and learned about no less than nine non-Career tributes including Clara – learning their stories, enlisting aid, and securing allies. He hadn't been turned away once, and by the time the third day of training was over, Clara reported that Firth had built an impressive network.

_He's building an army,_ Sam saw through the guise at once. _He'll kill the Careers through numbers and sound strategy – and after that, no one's going to be in his way_.

The boy from District 4 had earned another impressive advantage in Sam's eyes. No matter what happened at the Cornucopia now, he'd almost certainly have at least two surviving tributes still out and about to connect with. Even in the event of a massacre – and with all Careers standing – Firth had hedged his bets well enough to launch a capable resistance. Sam began to doubt that Nyx and the Careers were the most dangerous tributes in the 99th Games; suddenly, the legacy tribute from District 4 looked like the man to beat.

His eleven reflected that.

Constantine's interviews arrived in a hurry. All too soon Sam was forced to realize she'd only have one more night with Clara – one more time to say anything that mattered before she'd have to let her go into the arena and face whatever demons lay there. First, however, she'd have to get through this last pre-Games hurdle.

Dallas steered Sam towards a special entrance in the Capitol City Music Hall, veering past babbling crowds of spectators and escaping away from the spotlight. Clara, Waco, Gnaia, Agrippa, and their prep teams had arrived two hours before to prepare – by now, Sam figured everything that had to be said was over. Clara owned a naturally combative and bold personality in the limelight, but Waco would be an experiment. She privately didn't want to see him up on the stage at all; it most likely would be an awkward interview that Constantine would have to pull out all the stops for.

"Dallas, wait," Sam stopped him before they entered the crowded Hall. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure," he submitted. "You don't have to ask permission of me to ask a question, Sam."

"Tomorrow…I know we have to be at the Control Center early," she began. "But…in the morning, I want to take Clara to the roof with Agrippa. You know; just to say goodbye."

"Alright," Dallas relented. "But only to the roof; you know that. When you're done, you're coming as fast as you can run to Control."

"Absolutely," Sam nodded enthusiastically. "Thank you. It means a lot."

She looked to head into the Hall, but someone else was already watching – an elegantly-dressed someone missing a lower jaw.

"How touching," Vespasian held his head high, his eyes dismissing the two from District 10. "Reconciling before your inevitable failure tomorrow morning?"

Dallas's muscles tightened up. "Why don't you go find something better to do before you get hurt?"

"Courageous words. Finally discovering some hidden fortitude?" Vespasian sneered. "It is a minor miracle you weren't purged in your own competition, Dallas. And your protégé, of course…"

District 2's mentor let his gaze fall on Sam with a haughty appraisal. "Take care."

Dallas clenched his jaw as Vespasian walked off, his hand gripped about Sam's shoulder. He released her after a minute, ushering her into the Hall without a further word. Finnick loitered against the wall at the end of the entrance tunnel, biding his time before taking his seat.

"Just gonna stand here all night?" Dallas asked him, trying to let off some of his energy from the confrontation with Vespasian.

"Considering it," Finnick replied with an amused expression. "Were you two just planning on talking with that bum all night?"

Vespasian had made his way to his seat, exchanging barbs with fellow District 2 mentor Enobaria before sitting down. Although she had considerable years of experience over him – indeed, he was only a recent winner – it was clear Vespasian carried the role of the dominant member of the partnership.

"I don't want anything to do with him," Dallas looked on with disgust. "Let's grab our seats."

Sam realized she'd never made time to give her condolences to Finnick. All this time strategizing for Clara and Waco and she'd simply begun to see Firth as another obstacle – yet he was someone's son as well.

"Finnick," she blurted as Dallas eyed District 10's and 4's chairs. "Is there anything I can do for you? I know this has to be hard."

"Sam, don't worry about it," Finnick replied casually, his eyes unfocused and veering off into nowhere in particular. "I knew this day was coming. He's the son of two victors – had to happen. I know what I have to do. Annie's not so fine, but she's not here, huh?"

"Is she…holding up?" Sam asked gently, remembering Annie's kind expression and words back on the Victory Tour - from her warm greeting of Sam to sneaking River into the evening meal.

Finnick sighed, crossing his arms. "I call her nightly – yeah, perks of being a victor, huh; we have phones. She…has her own way of dealing with problems, but I'm not going to let her go a night without hearing from me. Seriously, don't worry about it. You have your own tributes."

Sam figured Finnick's nonchalant approach was his own way of handling the problem. She'd never really seen a private side of him – even on the Victory Tour he'd kept himself poised and chipper for the cameras, and out and about in the Capitol he put on a far more catchy and cocky show. There had to be something inside that façade for a woman like Annie – so clearly caught up with some world within her mind – to be with him.

Then again, his looks made even Sam reconsider her priorities – even in his forties.

Loud music blared through the Hall as Sam took a seat next to Dallas, with Cheyenne on his other side. Jetty sat to her right, talking with Finnick – more so _at_ Finnick than with – about various shallow topics.

"Having fun?" a husky woman's voice behind them asked of another mentor.

"A typical waste of time and resources," was the reply from a voice Sam instantly identified as Thresh.

She turned her head about, unsure of whether to greet the quiet mentor or simply to let him be. The woman – roughly the same age as Finnick with short dark hair and a muscled build – raised her eyebrow at Sam.

"Looking for something, brainless?"

"No, no," Sam held up her hands. "Nothing."

"Great. Show's that way. Figured you'd remember that."

Dallas wore a wry smile as Sam turned back towards the stage. "That's Johanna. You'll get used to her."

"I bet," Sam rolled her eyes. On first introductions, she sounded far too much like a cross between Cheyenne and Persephone to her – an ugly combination if there ever was one.

Constantine's tangerine-orange hair lit up the stage as an array of trumpets blared, announcing the start of the main event. He bowed and smiled for a full minute, letting the rain of applause ring down around him. Sam could see why she'd been so easily guided into a strong interview the year before; even from afar, Constantine's personality was infectious.

"Thank you, thank you," Constantine waved to an electric audience. "Thank you, _Panem!_ In just a minute now we're going to have _all_ of this year's tributes out for you. Are you _ready_? Let me hear you!"

Raucous cheers and shouts created a cacophony of human energy within the Music Hall. A set of twenty four chairs rose from the floor, flanked by twenty-four holes that had opened up behind them. As if by magic, the tributes rose from the floor – most stunned by the bright lights and unrestrained roar of enthusiasm that met their arrival. Sam was glad to see Clara kept her head – beaming with a bright smile and polished face that matched the scarlet evening dress she wore.

_Thank you for coming through, Agrippa_, Sam wordlessly thanked her stylist. It was easy to see which angle he'd taken – Clara came out to appeal to every shallow Capitol citizen who valued looks over substance. Cheyenne's hard-line approach to practical marketing would sink or swim tonight.

"Game on," Dallas muttered.

"Either the tributes are getting younger or I'm getting older," Constantine joked from the stage as the twenty-four chosen kids took their seats. "Am I wrinkling as I speak up here, folks?"

"Same dumb line from last year," Cheyenne growled from the other side of Dallas. "Stupid prick's two years younger than me and he makes age jokes."

"Our 99th Games," Constantine went on with his introductory program. "I can remember the first like it was yesterday. Well no, I can't – I wasn't born then. I'd have to talk to Haymitch if I want the details."

Dallas laughed genuinely as the camera focused on his friend and District 12's mentor throwing up a hand to swat away the camera focus. Sam hadn't met either he or Rory Hawthorne of District 12's mentor team, but they'd helped Storm through her Games all the way until the end. That was enough to endear them to her.

"Now, I'm sure you're all begging me to stop," Constantine smiled to an accompanying soft "Yes!" from Cheyenne. "So let's have a _big_ round of applause for our first tribute…from District 1, _Sinopia!_"

Districts 1 and 2 performed just as Sam expected them to – without a hiccup. Both tributes of the former played on their near-celebrity status in being from the favored district of the Capitol. Their bright attire and eye-catching expressions merged seamlessly with catchphrases and intriguing dialogue with Constantine, working them into the favor of sponsors right off the bat. Nyx and Commodus from District 2 went the usual route – appearing as cold-blooded killers and mercenary assassins. Although both discussed their mindset going into the Games with Constantine in depth, neither had to speak – their physiques did all the talking.

District 3 provided a surprise. The boy Sam had found mysterious back during the Reapings – his name was announced as Boltzmann, a nomenclature reference Sam had no inkling of – managed to outsmart Constantine on nearly the entire interview, turning questions about to subtly poke fun at the entertainer. Although Boltzmann never lost his quiet and flat demeanor, his short quips and perception of timing soon had the crowd laughing far more at the interviewer than the interviewee.

Finnick barely flinched as Firth took his turn – and his son did not disappoint. He traded comedic jabs with Constantine, effortlessly transitioned into serious discussions about the expectations on a son of two victors, and finished it off with a patriotic allusion to District 4's high regard in the Capitol. Already Sam was losing faith in the ability for Clara or Waco to stand out – seven of the first eight tributes had succeeded through their interviews, with only the girl from 3 proving forgettable.

Fortunately, the middle districts continued their usual ineptitude. The boy from District 5, a short fifteen year-old named Ion, and the tough-looking Willow from District 7 both did well, but none of the others from between Districts 5 to 9 made any sort of impression on Sam. Going right before Clara, the boy from District 9 – Wikus – particularly seemed out of his element. She smiled on the inside; his failure would mean Clara's success if she capitalized.

_Really, you're rooting for his failure?_ A small voice within her asked. _You're no better than any of these other people; all too quick to sacrifice the nameless for your own goals. You're no better than Vespasian_.

Sam felt sick at herself as Clara strolled up to meet with Constantine.

"Clara, Clara, from District 10," Constantine opened. "Welcome. I have to say, I adore your dress."

"Thank you," Clara smiled. "It's almost as cute as yours."

Sam closed her eyes, fearing for the worst with Clara's snipe at Constantine's outfit – yet what came from the crowd was raucous laughter. Constantine gaped his mouth open with the edges of a smile, laughing at himself alongside the audience.

"Wow," he replied. "You're destroying me on the fashion front, young lady. Are you trying to take my job?"

"I'd have to kill you if I told you," she bounced back easily, leaning in to whisper to him – right into his microphone so the entire audience would hear. "But you better watch your back. I've got my eye on that chair."

"I am legitimately fearing for my life right now, folks," Constantine laughed. "You are ruthless, Clara! But, let's move on…you scored a nine in training. You're one of our older tributes, at seventeen. You're fit, funny, and from a district used to working in the outdoors. Would you say you belong at the top of the leaderboard heading into the arena?"

Clara put on a look of mock horror. "Constantine, I thought I was your favorite! Are you trying to get back at me for wanting your job?"

"I wouldn't dream of it!" he professed with an audience loving the back-and-forth banter between the two.

Clara laughed for a moment before delving into her answer. "But yes, I'd have to say I'm very well prepared for the arena and whatever comes my way. I'm well-rounded, eager to get going, and ready to make back-to-back wins for District 10."

"Now, about that," Constantine flowed into his final question. "Our sources say you and our most recent victor, Samantha Parker, have a long history in District 10. Care to share a little bit of how you two have handled this year's Games with us?"

Sam bit her lip as the wide viewing screens above the stage split, showing a real-time projection of her and Clara. Why did Constantine have to ask that? She figured she'd just be watching today…not actually in the spotlight again.

It was up to Clara now.

"Sam and I have been best friends for a long time," Clara started out slow, her eyes flicking out to the audience. "My heart broke when she was picked last year…well, you all interviewed me back in the district. I was proud of her when she came home…so happy to have her back. Now that I'm competing, I want to make her just as proud of me when I win."

Sam couldn't contain a sob that escaped her throat like a frog. Clara had articulated every bit of their friendship through just a few simple words – far more eloquently than she herself could have ever put it. She pressed her right hand to her heart, smiling through tears as Dallas put an arm around her.

"And proud she will be," Constantine wrapped Clara's hand in his own, giving her a firm smile. "Ladies and gentlemen…Clara Bowie, from District 10."

A booming round of applause rang out from the crowd as Sam struggled to hold back the tide flowing from her eyes. Dallas and Jetty held her from each side, comforting her as best they could. She turned her eyes up just long enough to see Finnick's stare.

He looked on with sympathy - knowing what lay ahead for her would almost certainly end in ruin. It was the only way he could succeed.

Waco and the following four tributes provided lackluster performances, but Sam couldn't keep Clara's oath of friendship out of her head through the remainder of the evening. She grabbed her friend in a leaping hug as soon as they met up back at the training center, holding the embrace for a long time and ignoring the unprofessionalism of her action via her status as a mentor. Waco could think whatever he wanted now – the final dice were cast. Sam would spend potentially her last hours with Clara however she damn well pleased.

As the night dragged on, Sam found herself on the floor of Clara's room with her friend at her side, sitting and watching the starry night over the plains depicted by the window remote. The two girls were quiet; each knew the stakes ahead in just mere hours.

"Clara," Sam whispered, her voice soft and slow as she played with the pant legs of her pajamas. "What you said with Constantine… I'm already proud. You've done better than I could have ever dreamed of doing."

"Sammy, don't you worry," Clara replied. "You said it that first night. We'll both go home, together. We'll make Clay jealous; he'll be the only one of us out of the club."

Sam smiled. "Ugh. I guess you can have him in your house."

"He really likes you, you know," Clara admitted after a pause. "As more than friends."

"Yeah, I guess he does," Sam let out a short giggle. "I guess I do, too."

"When we get home, we'll figure out something to do there," Clara said.

Sam nodded and looked at the ground before spontaneously breaking into a crying spell as the weight of the situation hit her. Clara reached over and hugged her from behind, running a hand over her head and pulling her in tightly.

"Sammy, don't cry. I'm going to be fine. You will too."

Sam sniffed. The irony of the situation was not lost on her: where she was the mentor and supposed to be strong for her tributes, Clara held back the fears for her. It had always been this way; Clara had been emotionally strong and steady where Sam had been expressive and quick to fluctuate between peaks and valleys. Now, she just needed her emotional support – and in less than a day would be watching that walking into the depths of hell.

"Thanks, Clara," she wiped away a tear. "Thanks…for everything. For always being there."

"You've always been there for me," Clara added. "That's why I love you, Sam."

Sam smiled. "I love you too. Always."

As Clara climbed into bed to get sleep before the departure to the arena, Sam took a look back at the starry field in the window picture. She scanned the constellations, looking for the familiar sign…but it wasn't there. There was no dipper in the portrait; no North Star, no Polaris always out as a twinkling friend in the night sky.

No route to find the way home.


	17. Ashes to Ashes

Early alpine sun poured through Sam's window as she awoke, glancing at shining red numbers on the clock that read five after six. She'd have to get Clara up to the roof by six forty-five; the Games themselves began at ten. In four short hours, Clara could be dead – stone dead, cold dead, the dead that no one came back from; packed away in a pine box and shipped home for burial in District 10. Sam shoved the thought from her mind, running through a quick shower and throwing on inauspicious clothing. She couldn't be bothered to look nice today.

Agrippa met her outside her door a half-hour later, looking gravely serious. He'd be with Clara all the way up until she ascended into the arena – her last line of contact and support before she'd be on her own in a battle of life and death.

"Are you holding it together?" he asked Sam quietly.

She nodded, yawning more to quell the butterflies in her stomach than out of sleepiness. Unlike Clara, she'd have all the time in the world to sleep later.

Waco, Clara, and Gnaia met the two near the elevator, wearing faces ranging from anxiety to stony determination. The lift seemed to take slower in the early morning, letting Sam throw in as many last-minute things as she could.

"Remember, no more than ten feet towards the Cornucopia before you get out of there," she hurriedly went through a final checklist. "Find where each other are as soon as you get into the arena, and then take thirty seconds to see what's around. Use the rest of the time to find what's at hand and the best way to get away so you don't caught in the bloodbath. Once you're clear of danger, get looking for water and food and keep a low profile. Don't light a fire unless you absolutely have to; if you're in snow or mud, cover your tracks the best you can."

The lift doors opened to bright orange sunshine as a bullet-shaped hovercraft hung overhead with a number of ladders stretched downwards. Unlike last year, Sam had gotten up before some of the other tributes. She gave Waco a big hug, patting him on the back once before turning to Clara.

"Come home, okay?" she grabbed Clara's hands, never letting her eyes waver. "Come home."

"I will," Clara whispered. "I won't leave you, Sam."

The two girls embraced with a sense of finality, holding each other just long enough to let everything unsaid be known. Clara let go, taking a step back and grabbing hold of the ladder. Sam watched her ascend up the hovercraft until she was out of sight, consumed by the silver beast of technology. She couldn't be by her side now – it was up to each to do their part.

Sam hurried away as Agrippa and Gnaia boarded, taking the lift down to ground level and hurrying into the Avenue of the Tributes. Traffic was light for so early in the morning and Sam easily got to the Control Center without delay. The marble columns out front seemed especially intimidating today – here would be her nexus and nerve center for the remainder of the Games; a war room fit for an inescapable fight where the only goal was survival.

Dallas waited just inside the foyer, looking concerned.

"Do you have something you want to tell me?" he asked her sharply.

"What?" Sam asked, confused. "I came as fast as I could."

"Cheyenne and I got here an hour ago," Dallas blew past her concern. "We had something waiting for us…a sponsorship. A hefty one."

"Why is that bad?" Sam felt delighted. "That's good, isn't it?"

"It came with a precondition," he continued. "It was sent to your name – and yours only. We can't open it; we have no idea who sent it, or why. We only know that it's the maximum credit cap for the first day. Somebody big is interested in our camp; more specifically, I think they're interested in you."

That wasn't good. Sam didn't think this sponsorship – whatever lay within it – was meant out of respect or infatuation with Clara or Waco. It didn't sound like the traditional sponsorship at all as a betting tool for social status. Rather, it sounded like a message.

"I'll get it as soon as I can," she replied.

"Not yet. We're going to be getting last-minute details from Diocletian inside the Control Room; once that's done, we'll head to our suite."

"We get our own room?"

"Every district does."

The Control Room itself veered away from the grandiose stone and rock foyer; white plastic walls and holographic haptic interfaces dominated a wide circular room staffed by nearly forty technicians and assistant Gamesmakers. The other mentors and escorts stood about a viewing platform that stretched three hundred sixty degrees about the room, reaching the pinnacle below the main viewing screen and leading into a small passageway. The entire ceiling seemed to be made of screens; individual viewpoints from a thousand angles could cover every square yard of the arena. For now they sat with blurred static, but closer in to launch they'd come alive with color and activity.

"Do we know what the arena is?" Sam asked Dallas as the two met up with Cheyenne and Augusta, standing along the railing outside a doorway that led to their alcove.

"Not yet," he replied. "We'll find out once we go inside. This is more about procedure."

Diocletian stepped out of the long hallway, well-dressed in a plum suit and blazing orange tie. He slicked his hair back as he scanned over the room, making eye contact with seemingly every person inside.

"Our Head Gamesmaker wishes you to know there are a few things of note," he began, reaching down and activating the main holographic projector in the center of the room. "This year's arena is considerably larger than last year's; while that may seem like it will spark inactivity, it's designed for maximum interaction. We expect a competition of similar length."

Sam wondered how an arena got any larger than the desert canyon she'd competed in. That had seemingly gone on forever, stretching and winding its way about the parched environment. Still, it had only taken nine days – if Clara could hold on that long again, maybe it'd be enough to win.

"You'll get the details individually, as always," Diocletian went on. "But scattered-"

"-about the arena will be numerous traps this year," Rex emerged from the hallway behind Diocletian, stepping up before his assistant and dwarfing him in stature. His electronic eyes shook Sam to the core; he seemingly stared everywhere at once. It was impossible to get a picture of what he was looking at. "A few are deadly. With that in mind, I urge you all to be judicious about how you spend your funding. What may seem like the _prudent_ choice may not be the _best_."

Nearby, Enobaria chuckled and crossed his arms. Rex flicked his head at her with insect-like speed, staring the imposing mentor down with a force only he could project.

"Do you have a concern from District 2?" Rex assaulted her expression. "Or do you not take me seriously?"

Enobaria held up her hands in defeat, backing off her position quickly. "No, no. Carry on."

"As you were," Rex did not sound amused. "If anyone has questions, see Diocletian. Only come to me with a legitimate grievance. That is all."

He turned and walked away without a second glance, letting Sam relax as he departed. She knew it certainly wouldn't be the last time she'd see him during the Games…or possibly even today.

"If there's nothing else, you're free to begin," Diocletian spread his arms about. "Let me know if you have questions about the arena."

"I do, Sulla. When are you going in so we can have someone competent running this?"

"Cheyenne, can we please have a normal morning in here for once?"

Cheyenne snickered and opened the door to the alcove, muttering so only Sam, Dallas, and Augusta could hear: "He'll miss me next year. Book it."

The District 10 suite impressed Sam. The same white plastic walls irritated her, but the velvet-lined furniture and array of holographic haptic arrays showed no sparing of expense on the Capitol's behalf. Three pull-out beds formed seamlessly into the walls, and six food and drink dispensaries attended to any need of hunger or thirst.

"Are you drinking already? That is _highly_ irresponsible," Augusta chided Cheyenne as she poured herself a beer.

"Look, there's not jack we can do anyway until the Cornucopia's done," Cheyenne scoffed. "So, not for about three-and-a-half, four hours? Great. Might as well get accommodated."

"Let's bring up the map," Dallas activated the central circular holographic display unit, launching a cloud of blue light particles into the air. "See what we're up against. Sam, the sponsorship's on either of the two communications computers over there. Go ahead and open it; we can kick off our account right now."

Sam looked down at the display in utter confusion. The computer readout was a holographic three-dimensional white cube of light, floating in the air before her over a pattern of projector dots over its main console. She didn't even know where to begin.

"Can…can one of you help me?" she looked over her shoulder. "What do I do?"

"Here, dear," Augusta walked over with a patronizing air. "You simply have to use your hands."

She pressed her three fingers into the cube of light, spreading them out and opening the haptic interface. Circular points of interaction opened up before Sam's eyes, each labeled with a description and a picture icon for reference. Augusta flicked open a "sponsorships" tab from numerous others, among them "inbound messages," "executive messages," "inter-district communications," and "personal transfer."

"This is the communications terminal," Augusta kept her eyes forward. "So's the one next to it. The one over there is for accounting of funds and allocation of spending, and the one next to it is for general use and data research."

Augusta's quick count of features overwhelmed Sam with information. She'd heard the quip that one could learn more from the Capitol's computers in a day than a single person would learn in a lifetime in the districts, but only now did she believe it. The sheer amount of data on these terminals was astounding – and these were only pertinent to the Games.

Sam paused before opening the single glowing active sponsorship symbol as Dallas looked over the arena map.

"Well this is a change-up," Dallas raised his eyebrows as Cheyenne moved over to study the layout. He used his hands to crunch the blue holographic image in, focusing on an object that could only be the Cornucopia. "Here's our start. Pull back…and look what we have over here. Looks like Rex is trying to impress."

Before Sam had a chance to react, she turned her eyes back towards the sponsorship tab and opened the message. It was four thousand credits, just as Dallas had said – the maximum cap number for the first day of the Games. Inside was a message; Sam instantly knew why it had come to her. The timing wasn't good.

WE NEED TO TALK. –TRAJAN

* * *

**The Arena**

Clara tugged at the tan windbreaker that covered her upper body, completing the ensemble that incorporating a thick pair of brown boots, a pair of gray pants sturdy enough to shrug off sticks and insects, and a dark brown undershirt designed for heat absorption. Agrippa figured it would be something cold, but Clara hoped against hope that it wouldn't incorporate snow. Sam had told her that the Gamesmakers didn't like tributes dying of hunger or thirst – that it was boring and they preferred the smart tributes who made use of abundant surroundings – but she still had the thoughts gnawing at the back of her mind.

As the circular tube leading to the arena closed around her, Clara felt a spike of terror shoot through her. She'd managed to compose herself ever since the first night after the chariot ride, but now the reality set in: it was very possible she had mere minutes left alive. She placed her palms against the glass as Agrippa fell out of sight, drowned out by a sheer white light that surrounded her on all sides. When she finally emerged aboveground, she'd been transported to a different world.

The first thing Clara noticed was the stuff falling from the sky. It fell unlike rain – without the constant weight and annoyance, but only with a soft flutter to the ground. She thought it was snow at first, but closer inspection of a flake that landed on her hand proved otherwise.

_Ash_.

Gray ashes fell from a dark and angry sky, limping down from looming storm clouds like the last gasps of a thousand burned ghosts. The Cornucopia itself stood before Clara, dull and gold in the lack of sunlight and perched on a hiccup of land that sloped up from a flat sandy plain extending in every direction. Scraps of metal and debris littered the plain, as if some giant aircraft had blown itself to pieces across the landscape. Far stranger things perked her attention even more.

Jutting out from another nearby mound stood a huge steel pillar. It reached out to the sky, supporting nothing but its own mass and covered with black burn marks. The end of the plain in one direction led to a giant gray wall – seemingly made of some substance similar to concrete, Clara didn't even want to imagine what it held back. On the slopes up from the plain all around indicated what Clara truly faced.

Husks of dozens of skyscrapers reached hundreds of feet into the air, a sad and decaying relic of a once-proud city. The skyline stretched out for over five miles of the urban area and clearly invited the tributes to find shelter and protection amidst their forgotten avenues. The dead city put the Capitol to shame – in its heyday, it could have held ten million, with space for parks, hovercraft pads, train stations, and more.

_We're fighting on a graveyard_.

Clara rubbed her arms against a fierce wind that blew from the direction of the dam, tossing her hair in every direction from its strength. She'd never be warm in this arena.

"_Ladies and gentlemen," _Claudius Templesmith's old yet reliable voice sounded out across the dead plain. "_Let the 99__th__ Hunger Games begin!_"

Illuminated numbers appeared holographically over the Cornucopia, counting back from sixty. Clara felt a rush as she looked about – to her right and in the direction of the dam stood Sistine, looking ready to rush on to the Cornucopia. To her left and in the direction of the skyscrapers stood Willow from District 7. Clara couldn't make out her expression, but she looked ready to get out as soon as possible.

She couldn't find Waco at all – likely he was on the other side of the Cornucopia. She could only hope he'd ditch as she planned to do – head in towards the necropolis, where there would be plenty of cover and opportunities to hide and reorganize.

Maybe he'd even find her. For now, however, she had her eyes on someone else.

As the clock ticked under forty, Firth set into a sprinter's stance on his pad, four to her left. Clara held out hope the two would be able to find each other. The boy from District 4 presented her the best option as an ally; undoubtedly he was one of the most prepared tributes and had scored the best. Regardless of his intentions, she figured teaming up with him would at least give her temporary protection from the Careers.

With less than half a minute to go, Clara scanned her nearby area. Like last year, the Cornucopia was filled to the brim with weaponry of every make and model. Gladii, cutlasses, scythes, war hammers, axes, spiked clubs, and even a highland claymore offered protection and instant offense to any tribute daring enough to go for the spoils. Clara thought otherwise – although she was physically fit, matching up with the Careers at the Cornucopia was suicide. She still always questioned the smaller kids who made a try for the glittering weaponry, headed into a death trap that they could hardly survive.

_Ten…nine…eight…_

There, on the ground seven feet in front of her – a green-and-brown sac with shoulder straps seemed the best thing to go for. Sistine clearly had his eyes on joining the melee in the center, while Willow didn't seem a contender to do anything at all. Clara focused on the pack – she'd make sure it was hers.

The _whom_ of the gong accompanied a bright red flare out of the Cornucopia. Sistine lunged forward from his plate as Firth got going, both heading at light speed in towards the weapon bounty. Clara hurried off her pad, snatching the sac and tossing it over her shoulder. She turned to run, peering her head back as a _whang!_ drew her attention.

Firth and Sistine already had engaged in battle at the Cornucopia, the boy from 4 staving off his opponent with a bladed quarterstaff. Sistine had picked up a pair of gladii, swinging them like extensions of his body in long arcs. Clara didn't bother to see who won the contest; she scampered off as fast as her legs could carry her.

_Get to the city. Find water. Find food._

With the wind picking up and hurling ash in her face, Clara sprinted across the debris-strewn plain towards the dead streets that awaited her.


	18. Lost Amongst the Dead

_**A/N: Apologize if this and the last chapter are a little rough on editing issues; the site last night decided it didn't want to accept any of my dashes inside my sentences, so I had to nuke this whole thing and wait again until today to post. Sorry for the delay...and for those of you who are wondering why my chapters keep appearing and disappearing.**_

* * *

_Plat, plat, plat._

Nyx's pounding footsteps cut through the ash-covered soot, looking for remnants to finish off around the Cornucopia. Sistine and Sinopia were already at work looting the Cornucopia with Scylla, rooting around containers and weapons and determining what was best to salvage. Nyx didn't care; she was far more interested in what there was to kill. All she knew was killing; she'd succeeded in District 2 because of her tenacity and barely-contained rage, volunteering for the Games because this was the culmination of her life. She didn't know what her life after this would entail, but she didn't care.

Now was her moment.

She dragged a long war hammer behind her through the soot, letting its rear curved spike carve a path between her footsteps. Commodus pulled up to report on the action, his crossbow loaded with a fresh quarrel.

"Six dead," he grunted, the scar across his chin casting a dark look upon his tough face. "One's wounded and will die soon. There's enough in the horn to keep us going for weeks."

"Where is he?"

"Who?"

"The one who's not dead."

Commodus nodded his head to the side to lead her. She stuck the hammer to her belt, pulling out her off-hand weapon – a thick butcher's cleaver. It wouldn't do great in a close fight, but Nyx couldn't thick of a better executioner's weapon.

"Here," Commodus pulled up in front of a small body leaking blood, still flinching and pawing at the ground. "Not even worth the effort."

"It's always worth it," Nyx replied, using her foot to turn the body over.

She'd barely remembered this one. Typically the outlying districts were quickly forgotten, but her mentor, Vespasian, had given her clear instructions in regards to finding tributes from District 10: _I want them to bleed. I want to send a message_. He had invested considerable time into his last tribute, Hadrian, and had become enraged at his death the prior year – especially at the hands of the girl from 10 who had went on to win. Nyx couldn't remember her name, but that didn't matter now; she was more than happy to make a memorable show out of this year's District 10 tributes.

The boy was barely even worthy of it, though. He was small, thirteen at the oldest, and weak. She'd have to get creative – and hurry, as he'd been gored straight through the gut by Scylla's halberd. It was a fine hit.

"Do you know his name?" Nyx asked Commodus without blinking.

"No. Why bother?"

"Nothing," she replied with an edge of nastiness. "Set aside five packs worth of food, water, and supplies. Make sure the others are all armed with enough to kill at any distance, and then light the rest on fire."

Commodus looked perplexed. "Light the_ Cornucopia_ on fire?"

"Is that a problem?"

"Nope," he replied. "Done."

Nyx sized up the small boy from District 10 as Commodus walked off. He was still conscious – all the better.

"My mentor lost his jaw in battle," Nyx looked at her cleaver's edge – razor sharp, just as it had to be. "I think I'll avenge him."

She got to her knees, bending over the dying boy from District 10 and hammering the cleaver home.

* * *

**District 10 Control Suite**

Sam didn't feel a thing when Waco died. She figured she should have – she should have felt remorse, or sorrow, or even guilt – yet she finally realized how she viewed him. He was a sideshow, something to support and carry through in the process of getting Clara out alive. She was what Sam had to focus on; she would require all her energy. And to top it all off – she was still alive and scrounging her way through the ruined city.

_You are a monster, _a voice in Sam's head damned her. _A callous beast. You sacrifice a tribute as if he is garbage to save the one you prefer. You trade life as a commodity_.

Yet another voice in Sam's hold spoke differently, however – and this voice frightened her conviction far more. If it took throwing aside one tribute – or several – to pull Clara out, then she'd do it. That was the price for success. She'd tossed aside Gannet and Storm – albeit with stronger emotions – en route to her own victory; how much different was it?

"Son of a bitch," Cheyenne muttered at the display as a drone swooped in, picking up Waco's decapitated form and rocketing out of the arena.

"The girl?" Sam asked.

"No. Vespasian. He ordered that hit on us – no way she just goes for his jaw if it's a random kill. That was intentional; he's trying to faze us. Not gonna happen."

"This is a bit concerning, though," Dallas pointed out the scattering personnel dots on the holomap. "Dumping the Cornucopia supplies? It reeks of overconfidence, but I'm not sure it's misplaced. Seventeen tributes left, but there's five in the Career pack and they've got every base covered. I don't think they're stupid like last year…that's gonna take a small miracle to break up."

Augusta had already left the room to begin recruiting sponsors given Clara's survival of the seven-casualty bloodbath; soon Sam and Dallas would venture out as well, leaving Cheyenne to hold down the fort until the stylists came back. In the meantime, Sam found herself just as concerned about future prospects, already forgetting Waco and moving on.

_Is this how they deal?_ Sam thought to herself. _Forget about the humanity of the tributes? Just treat them as numbers and glowing icons_?

As much as Sam tried to think about the fear and anxiety every tribute outside the Career pack was going through, she found it much easier and more alluring to picture the field as a game. The thought was tempting; like the Cornucopia, it drew her in and promised her security from all the terrible things that would happen if she let her mind wander. When the tributes were people, this was murder of the highest order; when they were blue three-dimensional spheres on the grid, this was simply a strategy simulation.

_Trajan was right,_ Sam's conscience broke through the wall momentarily. _You are just like Rex. No humanity, no soul…just lights and clockwork. _

Sam wanted to tell herself off from such lines of thought, but it was far harder when she kept planning three steps ahead of where the Games were now. Additionally, she didn't want to think about Trajan – she figured she'd swing by his house after an afternoon securing sponsors, seeing just what it was he so urgently needed to discuss.

"Where's our girl at?" Cheyenne came back from refilling her beer mug; it was her fourth drink already.

"Just crossed the old pier," Dallas replied, focusing in on the zone. "She's heading right into the heart of the city."

"Near anything dangerous?"

"Not really. Not for about another mile if she keeps heading the same direction…which I really doubt she will, given the street layout."

Sam looked over the map – spotting something with alarm. "Who's that near her?"

Dallas pulled the view out to get a better look. "Little Odair and 7's girl. Threat?"

"They talked," Cheyenne reminded him. "She might be able to fall back on those two as a little team. That'd be nice…take a little weight off our shoulders, and I got no problem working with Finnick and Johanna."

Sam didn't like the set-up one bit. Sure Clara and Firth had talked, but if he had already pulled in Willow from District 7 to his side, it meant Finnick's son was conforming to her analysis of him perfectly. He was consolidating his bets, preparing his group to hit the Careers – and then leaving him with no opposition at the end. She wanted to believe he'd be a kind spirit and let any surviving teammates scatter first, but Firth was still a Career at heart. He'd been trained, just like his father. He'd take whatever advantage came up.

The door to the suite opened suddenly, showering the trio with two unexpected guests.

"Who's having fun? I sure am…not."

Haymitch Abernathy wandered into the room, looking tired and annoyed. On his heels came District 12's other mentor, Rory Hawthorne – his black hair a mess and his face looking as if he'd gone through several sleepless nights.

"How're you guys doing?" Dallas looked up at the fellow mentors.

"Pretty good, if that includes setting the world record for futility," Haymitch slammed down a glass of liquor on a table near the computers. "Five minutes and done. It is…just great that they want us to stay here through the entire Games this year. I couldn't be more thrilled."

Sam thought about that. Hadn't either Haymitch or Rory warned their tributes not to stick around the Cornucopia? Granted, she'd told the same thing to Waco and it hadn't mattered. Still…losing both tributes in the opening volley had to be a sucker punch.

"I'm sure you guys did your best," Sam spoke up as Rory poured himself alcohol from the dispensary.

"Thanks, sweetheart, that's really great of you," Haymitch sarcastically sniped. "I feel better already."

Rory walked over to the map, looking at the moving dots of tributes. "You guys are down to one?"

"Yeah, 2 got us," Cheyenne muttered.

"Huh. 2 got us, too. Both of ours."

"Well aren't they dandy," Dallas said. "So what are you two doing between now and the end?"

Rory laughed. "Hell if I know."

Haymitch raised his glass to that. "Refreshments."

It struck Sam that the same thing she had been worried about – losing connection with her tributes – was exactly what these two from District 12 had done. The poorest district in Panem hadn't won since the 78th Games with Rory, and with Storm having gotten so close to winning (ultimately placing 3rd in beating out Fresco's death by a few minutes,) it had to be more of the same between Rory and Haymitch. Sam figured the only way to deal with that much hopeless death was to disconnect from it all – to see everything as passing through.

She wondered if Dallas and Cheyenne had considered her the same way.

"Well," Dallas stood up from his seat. "Feel free to stick around with Cheyenne; we're not discriminatory. C'mon Sam, time to go to work."

* * *

**The Arena**

Clara kept her eyes up as she passed the pier, entering the streets of the dead city. The Careers were far behind, but she kept moving out of fear and adrenaline. A nearby alcove – possibly once a storefront or something else, but now a convenient cave to hole up in – offered temporary shelter for Clara to take stock of what she had on hand and what she'd need to address quickly.

Lightning cracked overhead as she ducked into the alcove, shaking ash out of her hair. She took a last glance outside before sitting behind a slab of fallen concrete. It offered good enough shelter and protection from prying eyes…but she'd have to be quiet. In between cracks of thunder, the city itself seemed to be as silent as the dead it was home to.

She shrugged the sac off her shoulder, laying it on the ground and opening its top. Clara took a second look around the chunk of concrete – couldn't be too sure – before digging through the sac. Extra socks – fat lot of help those would do – several protein energy bars, an empty canteen of water, and steel wire. Clara frowned; apart from the food, the sac had virtually nothing that would help her in the short term. Couldn't the Gamesmakers have at least filled the canteen before dropping it into the arena?

Clara had to find water. She had no great source of it on hand, with an entire arena covered in the falling ashes. She found herself doubting what Sam had said about the Gamesmakers providing water and food at will – maybe it had happened in the canyon a year ago, but finding any here seemed to be a challenge. She'd never even been to a city before arriving a week ago at the Capitol; how was she supposed to know where to begin?

As she got up to keep moving on, she stumbled across something white. When she kicked the ash and dust off her find, however, Clara wasn't prepared for what confronted her.

She screamed in fright as a human skull smiled up at her. Beneath the ash, a full skeleton stuck out in plain view. Clara didn't know how she'd missed it coming in, but it clearly was old. The bones seemed in good shape, but any semblance of flesh had rotted away decades – maybe centuries – ago.

Noise outside brought her heartbeat up to racing. Her inadvertent shriek in shock had alerted someone prowling about the ruins. Clara mentally slapped herself for being so stupid – Sam had specifically told her to keep a low profile and avoid drawing in attention (with allies being the lone exception…although she failed to figure out how to find Waco or anyone in the chaotic spread of the city.) Here she'd gone and gotten herself noticed in her first few minutes foraying into the urban environment.

She didn't have a weapon, but Clara saw one right at hand courtesy of the skeleton. One of the ribs had come loose a long time ago, and she snatched the long, pointed bone up. It would be an impromptu dagger at best – and if the people outside were Careers, she was as good as dead. It might just take someone from District 9 or 11 off guard, however; giving her enough time to either kill them or draw blood and run. She grabbed a large chunk of concrete as she slid behind the slab, preparing to hurl that as soon as she was discovered.

_Willow_. The girl from 7, just over an hour removed from standing beside Clara at the Cornucopia, peeked her head into the alcove. To Clara's delight she was unarmed, but she was still muscular and the oldest non-Career in the Games. There was no telling what kind of damage she could wreak in unarmed combat, so Clara kept the rib close. She steeled herself to do what she never imagined doing in her entire life – killing someone else.

Willow took measured steps, approaching Clara's cover just a foot too close. Clara swerved out from behind the slab, hurling the concrete chunk at Willow at point-blank range. It was a bad throw but still made contact, hitting the girl's sternum with a resounding _thump! _The girl from 7 stumbled backwards from the impact and fell down into the ash. Clara leaped up to run – no reason to fight when her opponent was down. As soon as she reached the entrance, however, another figure outside grabbed her by both shoulders. She shrieked and pulled the bone back to strike, but the newcomer – a boy – held her arm fast before she could hit.

"Clara, _stop!_ We're not trying to kill you!"

She backpedaled – _Firth_. He'd found her that quickly? It'd only been an hour, but…

"How can I be sure?" Clara panted, her eyes darting between Firth's outstretched palms and Willow's recovering form inside. "How do I know you're not trying to stab me in the back?"

"I-"

"_Tell me!_"

"Slow down, slow down," Firth tried to defuse the situation before it ended with someone's death. "Look, neither Willow nor I have a weapon. I lost mine at the Cornucopia. Can you drop the bone?"

"No."

Firth looked toward Willow, who had gotten back to her feet inside. Seeing her okay, he continued to try and pull Clara back from fright – and gain a second ally at the same time. He threw up a flashy smile, trying to win her easily. "Look, it doesn't look like you're with anybody-"

Clara gripped the bone harder and raised it to her shoulder. She was having nothing of his tricks.

"Okay, okay," Firth backed up, throwing that strategy out. "Clara, if you want to go, go. Fine. I'm not going to kill you, but I'm not going to force you to team up if you don't want to."

She lowered the instrument, looking into his green eyes with a questioning expression. "You're not gonna kill me?"

"No. I just said that."

"Not gonna stab me in the back?"

"Clara, Nyx and her band is a lot more concerning to me, sorry to say. Why would I stab you in the back?"

She tossed the bone to the ground, feeling a mix of shame and embarrassment. "Okay. Sorry. I just…got a little worked up."

"No questions asked," Firth smoothed out the deal.

"Try not to do it with a rock in your hand," Willow grunted, still smarting over the blow.

"Sorry," Clara said. "I…thought you were a Career or something."

"Let's go," Firth took over commanding again, easily assuming a leadership role over the trio. "I want to put some distance between us and Nyx's group before it gets dark."

Clara let the other two take the lead, trailing a few feet behind. It wasn't a perfectly warm welcome, but at least she had people with her who wouldn't knife her in the night. It was better than being alone.

She hoped so, at least.


	19. Highway to Hell

"I guess you're wondering why I sponsored your camp."

Sam sat in Trajan's kitchen, feeling less anxious now that she didn't have to worry about the possibility of being physically taken advantage of. She figured the military commander was more than capable of doing so, but she was the least of his concerns. Besides, it was obvious that Trajan could likely have gotten any Capitol woman he wanted; not due to looks, but simply for status and prestige. The fact that he rejected any overtures spoke more of his personality and intentions than his attractiveness.

"Is this…" Sam began.

"I deployed a drone, yes. What you say doesn't leave my house."

"Then yes, I do wonder."

Trajan nodded slowly as if she'd brought up the point out of the blue. "I want you to ferry a message to Rex. People watch me far too closely to have extended contact with him…I haven't spoken to the man face-to-face recently because of this. You, however, make sense; you'll be spending all your time between the Training and Control Centers when you're not soliciting people's money. It's natural cover."

"What's the message?" Sam asked.

"I suppose you think I trust you," Trajan superseded her concern. "And in the sense that I know you won't go spilling secrets to Octavian, I do. However…I don't actually trust you. Not yet. I have no reason to…so I have plenty of concern that you're going to leak what I say to people you are close with around you."

Sam felt her nerves stretch and thin; what was he getting at? Clearly he trusted her in some sense (although she didn't know why) by inviting her back into his house. Was this just some sort of ruse designed to lower her guard before pouncing?

"You already talked with me once...and I'm not really a talker," she defended herself.

"No? I don't believe you and have proof of the alternative," Trajan replied. "Like how your tribute…or should I say, _friend_…ended up in that arena right now."

Sam's eyes widened and she felt a hot rush rising in her chest.

"You did it," she whispered, her eyes brimming with anger. "You made her get Reaped. You're the reason she's fighting for her life."

"No."

"You rigged it," Sam felt her voice breaking as she picked up steam. "You've been keeping your eye on me ever since you killed the old Head Peacekeeper."

"Calm. _Down_." Trajan spoke softly, but his voice carried a battleship's worth of authority. Sam eased her way back against her chair, stuck between simmering anger over this new realization and latent fear of Trajan's power. "And only partially true. I have no desire to keep an eye on you specifically; these Hunger Games bore me, and I don't find you particularly special. I am only interested in collective security, so yes, keeping an eye on District 10 was pertinent. The compound intelligence – Rex calls it Nihlus – rigged your Reaping bowl."

"The _what?_"

"In the districts…you like to call our genetically-engineered creatures 'mutts,' correct?" Trajan asked, confirmed by a confused nod from Sam. "Cross one of those with a supercomputer and you have that thing that finds you so fascinating. It imprinted off of Rex; hence why it probably has an obsession with you. To me, it's a powerful intelligence-gathering tool. What you know as 'Nihlus' is simply the personified representation of software."

Trajan had completely lost Sam. "The…you're gonna have to explain that."

"A computer has two parts," he sighed. "Hardware is what the actual device is: inside your Control Center, the large circular table in the middle of the Control Room is hardware. It's what the projections come out of. Software is the data inside the computer – the stuff you access and use, without form or physical body. When you project an image of the arena inside the Control Room, that image's data source is software."

"So how does this involve…Nihlus?"

"Because what you see of him…it, really…is hardware," Trajan went on. "Its mind isn't contained within its body, like how you or I are. In reality, the mind of Nihlus is scattered across as many bodies as it wants. It shares information and disseminates data as it goes, like an ant colony…and in its original purpose, it reported back to my servers as a security tool to keep tabs on what the districts were doing. My theory was that it would reduce the need for stricter Peacekeeper enforcement and thus reduce tensions."

"So…you're saying…" Sam was still wrapping her mind around the concept of Nihlus.

"There's a lot of Nihluses, yes. For all you know, your friends are Nihlus," Trajan finished for her. "And Rex has the capacity to make as many as he wants. That's beside the point, however; the point is that the original; the one in District 10; went rogue. It's destroyed everything I've thrown at it, but it still transmits information. In essence, I can see what it does…but I have no _control_ over what it does. It's what Reaped your friend. It's what has an obsession over you."

Sam didn't know what to feel. The thought that Nihlus – the thing that seemed able to stalk her wherever she went back home; the thing that shadowed her very moves and appeared ready to pop up whenever it needed to – was _leagues_ beyond her comprehension was frightening at best. The thought that not even the military leader of the Capitol could rein it in was terrifying.

"This comes back to what we were originally getting at," Trajan concluded. "Regardless of what Nihlus is, it is a secret project that it decided to unwisely reveal to you. It also specifically told you to _not_ discuss it…which you did. That little misstep by you led to your friend and confidant struggling against a very high probability of imminent death…imagine what leaking far more sensitive data will do."

Trajan's threat overshadowed a far more damning realization Sam had, but she shoved it to the back of her mind until she was free of the man's abode. On the other hand, it made her see the absolute necessity of gaining Trajan's – and more so, Rex's – trusts.

"I…I learned my lesson, okay?" Sam pleaded her case. "I'm aware of-"

"You're not dumb enough to repeat your mistakes, yes," Trajan's habit of finishing her sentences began to irk Sam. "I certainly hope not. One thing I don't tolerate in my ranks is blatant stupidity. If the electronic systems weren't monitored, I'd just send Rex the message myself. Anyway - the moment a victor is declared in the Games, he's going to be arrested by Octavian's personal guard. The President has caught on to Rex's ambition and doesn't like it; I think he's going to try and have him disappear."

Sam gasped. "He's going to kill him?"

"Probably not _kill_…but I doubt you'll ever see him again, yes. Let Rex know of the news; I only received rumors today…and tell him I'm urging him to make plans accordingly, if you will."

Sam nodded and got up to leave, letting the words linger. Trajan realized just as she did that the point of no return for this brewing battle between the two leaders had come to a head; either Rex or Octavian would go on, leaving the other behind. Trajan had thrown his lot in with the Head Gamesmaker for whatever reason; still, even he had to be wary. Apparently Octavian still trusted him, but things could change quickly here.

The far more dangerous – and close to home – piece of information was from Trajan's veiled threat on her secrecy. The point was clear; if she didn't cooperate or took a wrong step, Clara was dead. If she let news of the simmering storm leak, Rex would have her killed at his earliest possible convenience.

_And what of Octavian?_ Trajan understood she knew he considered her little more than disposable flesh. If Clara won and he was still President…both she and Sam would be forced into an endless cycle of use here in in the Capitol until they could give no more. They'd be high-profile slaves, trafficked amongst the immoral and gluttonous forever.

That was an unthinkable option to Sam…but every other side to the coin seemed equally bad, if not worse. All she knew for sure was that she had been locked into a growing hurricane that quickly raged towards her coast, out of control and on course to hurt her worse than she knew.

* * *

**The Arena**

"Why would they light the Cornucopia on fire? That still doesn't make any sense."

Clara kicked a piece of rubble several feet as she thought aloud. She and Firth had been trading conversation for the past few hours, neither doing much to stay silent and hidden. Although Willow wasn't a talker, the trio had at least an hour lead on the Careers; they had been heading straight out away from the empty plain as best as the city streets allowed for a long time, weaving from avenue to avenue to gain distance. It didn't help that their best weapons were long pieces of concrete rubble and one length of rebar; neither Willow nor Firth had managed to recover everything from the Cornucopia. Clara's meager supplies were their only source of materials to survive on.

Now the Careers had made things that much harder to by lighting up the remainder.

"Denial of resources," Willow said, one of her few lines of the day. "Weed us out."

"What?"

"She's right," Firth agreed. "So far all this city has is ash and bones. Not a whole lot of food or anything useful to go around."

Clara thought that point over. "So…they're trying to get us to starve to death?"

"_Trying_," Firth flashed a toothy grin. "C'mon Clara, have a little faith. I'm not that bad."

Willow snorted. "What, are you trying to be lovebirds? You two have been non-stop ever since we got moving."

"Nah, I've got you, too," Firth gave her an overly-dramatic smile. "Nice to be me, huh? I'm just a man with options."

"You're not a man. You're a dick…and you're younger than me."

Firth laughed. He was disappointed he hadn't run into any other of his prospective allies yet, especially with only seven blasts of the cannon earlier signifying a low death count at the Cornucopia. Still, Clara and Willow presented him with plenty of flexibility; between the former's outgoing if naïve demeanor and the latter's tough-and-silent armor, he had the workings of a group that could handle plenty of situations. Even better, he had filled the niche of leadership without a hitch.

"Looks like it's opening up over that hill," he pointed to a rise in the terrain, where the tall skyscrapers of the dead city ended. "Maybe there's something besides ruins out there. Hopefully water at least; this is getting ridiculous. They have to put some in somewhere."

"You don't think they put it all at the Cornucopia, do you?" Clara piped up.

"Oh, that'd be exciting. That's probably what they did," Firth replied sarcastically. "They're counting on us all dying of dehydration to see how much fun it will be. There are probably a million viewers in the Capitol swearing at you right now, Clara."

Clara trotted up towards the edge of the hilly rise, hopping over piles of concrete debris. She had just begun to question Firth's interpretation of "entertainment" when the hill opened up a wide view over an ash-covered land – revealing a sight Clara had not been prepared to take in.

A sixteen-lane elevated highway stretched out from the bottom of the hill towards the horizon, long since broken and shattered beyond use. Pieces of it had collapsed down onto smaller roads below, spreading across the entire field like the corpse of a monstrous gray serpent. What littered the road was far more interesting – tens of thousands of vehicles pointed outwards towards the horizon like dead ants, smashed by the progress of time from some era long forgotten. Nearly all of them had lost any trace of their original paint, leaving only gray and black hulks as crowded sentinels on the road to nowhere.

"Huh," Willow broke up the silence as all three surveyed the scene. "That's new."

Firth's eyes shined, however – where the two girls saw only ruin, he saw an opportunity. "Let's get down there; come on."

"What?" Clara protested. "There's probably real dead people and stuff down there like in the building."

"Well, at least two of us are 'real dead people,' as well," Willow grunted with a trace of cynicism. "I'll take two hundred year-old skeletons to my own."

Clara didn't see what Firth saw in Willow – at least enough to make her an ally. She had far too much pessimism and scant little hope; Clara would have dumped her immediately if it had been up to her. Firth remained his usual masculine self – albeit slightly tempered through the arena's dismal setting – but the girl from 7 seemingly fit right in with the tomb of an arena.

"Well, _I_ don't like dead people at all," Clara grumbled as she began to make her way down the hill after the other two.

"I actually like them for three square meals a day," Firth replied with a touch of humor as he scampered over a large block of rubble. "It's good for the heart and mind."

"You are…so frustrating," Clara said, hopping off a concrete slab into a pile of ash.

"Mmm, I'm pretty sure Willow likes me that way."

The girl from 7 snorted, knocking aside a piece of concrete with her rebar pole. She may have made the earlier off-color remark about Firth and Clara's interpersonal dynamic, but Clara couldn't figure out who the boy from 4 liked more. Although he was more than willing to toss lighthearted remarks back and forth with Clara – drawing her mind off the dreary surroundings and the nature of the Games in the process – he always walked closer to Willow, seemingly wanting to draw nearer to the hard-hearted girl.

It was frustrating. Firth was a good-looking guy brimming with confidence…

_No, Clara, don't let yourself do that,_ she thought. _Sammy did the same thing last year and it took her forever to get over it._

She figured she was getting ahead of herself. Firth had shown no indication to be anything more than a teammate to her – and it was only still the first day of the Games. She wondered how much time had gone by; the ambient light of the arena never changed. A dim haze perpetually shone through the lightning-speared cloud layer, bathing both city and tributes alike in a persistent state of twilight. Clara questioned whether it would even ever get dark here.

Firth had reached the base of the highway, looking over the first car he had come across. Remarkably, it seemed to be in decent shape – while it certainly wasn't workable and was covered in ash and soot, it was still in one piece and wasn't a burned-out hulk like the majority of the other vehicles around, which stood charred and blackened.

"You think we can use something here to make a weapon?" he asked to the girls.

"If you're smart, you will."

Clara flashed her head around to spot the source of the voice. A plain-looking boy sat perched like a gargoyle on a car nearby, covered in camouflage-like ash and nearly undetectable against the surroundings. He'd clearly been watching them for some time and held a bottle filled with some sort of dark fluid.

"You make a lot of noise," he commented as Firth visibly relaxed. "I heard you before you even reached the hill."

"I thought you were Commodus," Firth breathed out a long sigh.

Finally Clara recognized him – Boltzmann, the boy from District 3. She'd seen Firth talking with him earlier, figuring he'd been one of his connections to ally with in the arena. The boy seemed anything like much of an asset – District 3 only had a mediocre track record of success in the Games – but clearly Firth had seen something she hadn't. If he was good enough to hear them coming and stalk them down to the highway, though, maybe he had something tucked away.

"You're Boltzmann, right?" Clara asked.

"Don't ever use that name," he answered her curtly. "Bolt."

_Okay, then,_ Clara thought. Clearly the boy from District 3 had a different sort of attitude than most of the tributes she'd ever seen from the technology-producing district.

"What's in the bottle?" Willow asked bluntly. "Somethin' to drink?"

"You haven't really looked around, have you?" he answered her just as clear. "This is a city. There's water everywhere if you look…and no, this isn't something to drink. These are combustion-engine cars. This is gasoline. I have two more with my pack."

"Gas?" Firth asked, figuring Bolt was now a fine fourth member of their team. "What have you been doing down here?"

"Making weapons, since it seems like you don't have any," he answered. "Unless you count that rebar stick as a weapon. It might kill a bug."

"It'd kill you," Willow said gruffly. She didn't like the newcomer any more than Clara.

"Hardly," Bolt replied, holding up a match. "If you were a Career, or you weren't with Firth, I would have killed you already."

"How's that?"

"Gasoline explodes. I was going to have stuffed my sock in this and thrown it."

Firth's eyes widened. "You're making fire weapons?"

"Was. Getting the gas out was easy, but I'm out of bottles," he tossed his head over his shoulder. "There isn't a greatly abundant pile of machine guns around, after all. But I figure since the Gamesmakers provided me with such nice surroundings, I might as well put them to work. It's amazing what you find in a city like this when nobody else knows what to look for."

"How long have you been here?" Clara asked him as he led the trio over to his sack, accompanied by two more of the gasoline-filled bottles and a large red metal tube.

"Two hours. These were pretty easy; I've been figuring out how to make a sort of base here around the cars. You're welcome to claim your own vehicle…since it is almost night, after all."

Clara gasped. "Wait…how long have we been in here?"

"You don't have a good perception of time out playing with animals in District 10, do you?" he said. "We tend to keep track of things…like time…in District 3. It's been nine hours since the start. The death count will be up soon."

Clara wondered how he'd recognized her when she'd barely remembered him – yet his revelation was worse. Nine hours? Sam had always told her it felt like the Games stretched on for eternity – turning a day into a year. Yet she'd been tromping around with Firth and Willow for only a little time, but it'd already been nearly half a day?

"So, that's all well and good, but what do you have in the sack?" Firth asked him, pointing at the canvas bundle that lay limply on the ground.

"You first," Bolt pointed at the bag Clara wore over her shoulders.

"Just…not much," Clara said. "Wire, socks, an empty canteen, and – oh – some weird bars. I don't really know where to find food now the Careers burned the supplies."

"They burned them?" Bolt raised an eyebrow. "Smarter than I thought. I took District 1's entrants to be the usual stupid flavor."

"I don't think that was Sistine and Sinopia's insight," Firth added blandly.

"Same result regardless," the boy from 3 replied. "But you have extra socks? They're more important as weapons. We're not trudging through swamps."

"How are you going to turn socks into weapons?" Clara asked skeptically. "The Careers have swords and axes and things…"

Bolt raised the gas-filled bottle as if he was talking to a mannequin. "It's a wick. Am I supposed to just toss the match in and watch it blow up in my hands?"

"I don't-"

"There's gasoline vapor in the bottle. When fire hits it, it ignites. The wick means I can throw the bottle and have it shatter when it hits those pleasant people from District 1, making them run around and burn to death," Bolt said. "Them rather than me, which is the intent."

The new boy stumped Clara. He was clearly smart and blessed with an aptitude for figuring things out, yet somehow he'd turned that brainpower into a tool for destruction. Already he'd armed himself to the teeth with things Clara had never even thought possible in the arena. Granted, this wasn't a standard arena – but it made the standard weaponry of Sam's Games seem like laughable children's toys.

"Anyway," he went on. "I have a bottle of water and some dried meat. You're welcome to share if you don't eat it all in one sitting, because I'm fortifying for the night here. I don't think there will actually _be_ a night with our cheery sky snowing ashes above us, but the meaning is what matters."

Clara was glad for the break – she felt exhausted. Between waking up early for the ride to the arena (the tracker in her arm still irritated her with a throbbing, dull pain) to all the anxiety and tension since, it had been a long day. She found an intact car, opening the door to make it accommodating for the night before jumping back. Staring out with a bleached bony skull was a male skeleton, accompanied by another one in the passenger side and two smaller skeletons in the back.

"Yah!" she shrieked. "There's…there's dead people in there."

"You are hopeless," Firth laughed. "Fine, I'll use this one. Go find your own."

"But they probably all have dead people…"

"Whatever," Willow said, kicking out the small skeletons and climbing in the back. "They're not using it anymore."

Clara sulked to a vacant vehicle nearby, looking back as both Willow and Firth used the previous one. She didn't want to think there was anything between the two…but to her wandering eyes, it seemed all too conspicuous.

She curled up on the seat of the long-forgotten car's bare cushion, not even waiting for the anthem and the death count before falling fast asleep.

* * *

_**A/N: Lemme know what you think of the arena; it's not the usual Gamesmaker-made variety, but more like Gamesmaker-appropriated. Yay dead relics of a bygone era. I know it's not entirely scientific that skyscrapers, the hulks of cars, and skeletons would still be around two hundred-odd years later, but hey, I go for entertainment value over scientific value. Look at Nihlus.**_

_**And yeah, Bolt's making Molotov cocktails. Don't try that at home.**_


	20. Necropolis

Morning didn't so much come about in the arena as did Clara's awakening. Although she'd fallen asleep early, the arena's atmosphere and sky hadn't changed a bit when she rubbed her eyes to begin a new day. Inter-cloud lightning lit up the skies like flak shots, providing an unnerving array of claps and booms to an already tense situation. The wind had died down, but the ash had not – the gray-white flurries continued to rain down in a soft, steady beat, leaving drifts piling up off the highway.

As she sleepily climbed out of the car that had served as her bed, she found Bolt already at work. He lay out underneath an intact vehicle nearby, the red canister Clara had seen the previous day open and empty next to him. A variety of parts that made up its top nozzle lay out as a disassembled mess; whatever the boy from 3 was doing, it was beyond her skill level by leaps and bounds. He'd already helped himself to her wire, drawing out a long piece and having it lying nearby beside her sack's extra socks.

He wasn't who she wanted to talk to right after waking up, anyway.

"Um…what are you doing?" she asked him. "And have you seen Firth?"

"Work, and no."

_Well, that solves that_. Apparently Bolt had no desire to talk either this morning – whatever he was doing pulled his attention away from her.

"Right here, Clara. You and I are finding food and anything else we can get our hands on today. Willow's still asleep, so she'll stay back while Bolt does his stuff."

Firth appeared from behind her, tossing the now-empty sack into her hands. He carried one of Bolt's bottles in one hand, a blackened sock stuffed in its top and trailing into the gasoline it carried. In anticipation of heading back into the city, Clara picked up the rebar pole from the ground, figuring it would be best if she was armed as well – although she still had no inkling of how she'd hold up in combat. Sam had killed inside of twenty-four hours; Clara, on the other hand, now found herself in a group that was large enough to dissuade casual attacks. Would she even have to kill before the numbers in the arena thinned out?

"Where are we going?" Clara asked, catching up with Firth as he began climbing back up the hill towards the city.

"I want to stay within the buildings," he replied, helping her over a large slab of concrete. "Nyx and her group are going to have the advantage on open ground, so I don't want to head back to the open flat where the Cornucopia was. In the city there's plenty of places to hide if we get ambushed by them or someone else."

"Oh. Okay…did you see who came up on the pictures of the dead last night? I fell asleep before it came on."

"Nothing serious. Both from 12 and 9. Girl from 11…girl from 5…and the boy from your district."

Clara stopped in her tracks. Waco…Waco was dead? Just a day ago she'd been riding the elevator up to the roof with him still very much alive, each preparing to head into the arena knowing very well death was close at hand. Yet he'd died anyway…after she'd pledged to ally with him and to stay by his side. She'd failed to uphold her word; she'd failed _him. _He'd only been thirteen; too young for this kind of thing. Too young to die…

"Oh. You were…" Firth realized his mistake. "I'm sorry, Clara."

"No, no," she tried to pull herself together. "I should have known. It had to happen eventually…there's only one victor, right?"

Clara took several minutes shaking off her guilt. Waco hadn't had a chance, really – nearly every year, someone between sixteen and eighteen won the Games. Sam had been a remarkable exception at only fifteen; Waco simply didn't have the experience or the physical prowess. He'd simply been shy and conflict-averse; such traits didn't add up well in a fight for survival when killing was a necessity. She rubbed her eyes, trying to purge the thoughts of the boy she'd gotten to know over the prior week from her mind. He was in a better place now, at least…headed home, back to District 10. He didn't have to suffer in this ash-covered waste anymore.

"We'll get them back for him, I promise," Firth patted her shoulder, helping her back to her feet. "I'm not going to let Nyx and her gang win."

He paused, turning around towards Clara and trying to brighten her mood. "What'd you call us again when we first met? Careers?"

Clara blushed, recovering from her thoughts on Waco and giving a half-smile as she answered. "It's just a nickname."

"No, I want to hear this," Firth returned an amused smile.

"It's…well, you guys train for the Games and everything," Clara explained, waving her hands around animatedly. "Since we don't do that in District 10, we figure it's like your career. So…Careers."

Firth laughed. "If only life was easy like that. Well, actually…that's not really that far from the truth. Careers. I like that. I'm going to start using that."

"Happy to help," Clara said as she reached the top of the hill, looking back into a desert city avenue. "I'm glad you appreciate my creativity."

"Ah, yeah, I'm sure you invented that."

"Of course. I'm gifted."

Firth opened his mouth for a witty comeback but paused, his eyes focusing on something in the distance. Without warning he grabbed Clara, throwing her down on the ground and jumping down beside her.

"Stay down!" he ordered, pulling her behind a pile of rubble and reaching his head just over to get a view.

Clara got one eye around the pile, seeing what Firth had spotted. She didn't spot anything at first, but it was clear when she refocused far down the avenue. Something – or someone – stood idly in the street, seemingly uncaring to the arena around him or her. Clara wondered if it was a tribute who'd already broken – had they gone insane, wishing for death? Did they just not care anymore? _What else would cause someone to do that?_

"I don't like this," Firth breathed. "Let's pull off down another street. I don't know who that is…but I'm not sure I really want to know."

"What are they doing?" Clara thought out loud. "Someone's going to find them…"

"Yea, someone like us," Firth replied. "But they're not going to be any help. Come on, Clara."

As soon as Firth had stood up, however, the solitary figure took a step to its right. Firth froze, his eyes staring straight down the avenue as the lone person took notice of him. Clara grabbed his hand, pulling him towards the corner of the road to get off – but she'd acted too late. Something on the figure flashed, sending up a _whirr_ that roared over the sound of cracking thunder. Firth tackled her as the ground exploded around them, throwing up puffs of dust and ash.

"What…" she started.

"Bullets!" Firth snarled. "Some kind of human mutt! We have to go now!"

He pulled Clara up, taking off with her in a dash as the strange new antagonist opened fire again. Machine gun rounds exploded behind the two tributes, sending ricocheting bullets glancing off concrete walls and rebar stakes. The mutt took off on a loping run towards them, galloping like some strange two-legged animal. As it drew closer, Clara got a better look at the horrifying monstrosity it was.

Like the Sentry Sam had seen on the Capitol streets, a black glossy sheen covered the majority of the mutt's body. Metallic parts stuck out here and there from the torso and limbs, conveying its design as a machine warrior. Far worse were the pinkish tumors and rotten cancerous sores that jutted out from between the gloss and the robotics; it was as if some sadistic Gamesmaker had mashed a human and a machine in some horrible blender, smashing them together until they had produced this soulless demon. It was the perfect beast for the dead city: without soul, without heart, and without mind. All it did was kill, courtesy of a minigun built straight into one white bone-covered arm.

"We have to hide!" Clara shouted. "It's still coming!"

Firth grabbed a match from his pocket, striking it against a piece of concrete and lighting the gas-soaked sock wick of his fire bottle. He took several paces backwards before launching the weapon in a high arc, grabbing Clara and taking off before seeing its effect. Clara turned her head backwards as a bright fireball exploded from the bottle's impact just in front of the machine mutt, sending a cloud of flame roiling across its body. The mutt blew through the fire, shedding molten flesh as if nothing had happened.

"Still coming," Clara panicked.

"In here!"

Firth leaped through a blown-out window into what once had been a storefront, locating an old stone closet and pulling Clara inside the dark space. He planted a hand over her mouth – if they couldn't be quiet and avoid being seen, the thing would find them for sure.

Finding them meant killing them.

_Crunch!_ The machine mutt smashed a piece of rebar under its heavy tread as it walked into the storefront, its head weaving back and forth. Clara got a view of its features from inside the alcove – a white skull of bone and plastics shedding blackened human flesh that had been melted away by the fiery blast of Firth's incendiary weapon. It gazed out with two gray eyes, unhurt by the attack and unfeeling to the fear running through Clara now.

She began to shake violently, terrified of the monstrous thing that stepped through the shop, intent on finding her. Firth grabbed her hand, pressing his other hand over her mouth just a little bit harder to keep her from making noise. Just as the thing stumbled towards the alcove, however, the two caught a lucky break.

_Snap!_ An errant footstep outside – drawn to the fiery blast of the bottle's explosion – drew a quick glance from the machine mutt. It loped out of the storefront, pounding into the street and turning on an unfortunate tribute. Bullets spat out from the minigun to the tune of a girl's bloodcurdling scream, making short work of some other tribute unfortunate enough to investigate Firth's mess.

_Boom!_ The arena's cannon fired off, signaling the eighth death of the 99th Hunger Games. The machine mutt seemed satisfied, walking away towards another avenue and leaving Clara and Firth breathing sighs of relief and thanks. They'd skirted death so far – but if that was only the opening twist of the arena, how many more chances could they take?


	21. Symphony of Fear

_**Gonna warn you ahead of time; there's some disturbing imagery at the end of this one. Just a disclaimer/heads-up for this chapter.**_

* * *

Sam awoke to a clear sky and bright morning light on the second day of the Games, mentally slapping herself for sleeping in as she noticed the clock read nine-thirty. Capitol citizens already began to appear in the streets from her view on the tenth floor of the Training Center, giddy and anxious about catching as much of the event as they could. Little did they – or Sam – know that already on the day, one tribute had died and Firth and Clara had slipped death's grasp by the skin of their teeth.

Floral bath salts and shampoo scents drew Sam away from her zombie-like state of sleepiness, clearing her mind for a full day of working to bring Clara home alive. Responsibility weighed on her shoulders like a heavy cross, forcing her to take some time before she returned to the Control Center. At least two of her contingent were there already – Cheyenne and Agrippa had stayed the night, serving as the two to be on-hand in case anything cropped up – so Sam felt confident she could take her time. Although her need to keep Clara safe pressed in like a pack of jackals, she constantly reminded herself to take care of her own needs as well. If she couldn't perform, she was useless to her friend.

One way to keep herself fresh was by calling home. Jake had promised to keep watch over her house while she was away, and her telephone wouldn't be having any other callers. She punched in her own number into her bedroom's phone, letting the track ring three times before Jake picked up.

"Hello?" her brother asked groggily, not expecting the call.

"It's me," Sam greeted him, wiping the last remnants of sleep from her eyes.

"Hey Sammy. Is everything okay? Sorry, stupid question."

"I'm just tired. I can't even talk to Clara now that the Games have started…and our boy died yesterday."

Jake let her last words hang before replying, choosing his reply carefully. "I saw on the footage here. I know you did all you could – don't blame yourself, sis."

"I'm not. I mean, I don't. I'm just tired."

"Clara's cousin, Cal, came by yesterday," Jake changed the subject, moving away from Waco's gruesome end on the business side of Nyx's cleaver. "He wanted to know if I'd heard from you on how you and Clara were doing. Couldn't tell him anything, unfortunately."

"Oh, Cal," Sam had almost forgotten about the kind boy she'd met down by the forest and the lake in the spring. "He's nice. Tell him I'm fine and we're doing everything to get Clara back home."

"Heh. You should get to know him more…seems like a good guy."

"Oh, I don't think so," Sam laughed nervously at her brother's subtle suggestion. "Besides, Clay and I are…yeah."

"Oh."

_That doesn't sound good_, Sam thought. "What's that mean?"

"Nothing," her brother hastily retreated. "Just remembering stuff I have to do later for Dad."

"Jake, c'mon," Sam pleaded. "What's 'oh?'"

"Um," Jake paused. "Are you and Clay…mutual friends with a redheaded girl?"

The comment flew over Sam's head before she realized the meaning. "No. Why?"

"Oh. He's been watching the Games with this girl down in the square. Looks like they know each other pretty well. I just thought…"

Sam felt a furious wave of fire shoot through her insides. "I'll talk to you later, Jake."

"Sammy, wait-"

She threw the phone down, feeling enraged with a side of jealousy. Clay knew she cared for him – even if she'd never actually_ said_ anything, he had to know. All they'd done together…all the years, and now with Clara in the Games – and he was watching along with some random other _girl?_ How could he be so callous?

_He has other friends_, a voice of reason answered Sam's thoughts in her head. _You're not the only person he knows. Relax. It's probably platonic and you're worrying about nothing, as usual_.

_Yeah. Platonically in her pants_, another voice spoke up. _He's betrayed you. You go home and he'll use you_.

_Don't listen to that. You've known Clay for years and he's always been good to you. Don't chuck it away based on Jake seeing something and not understanding your friendship_.

Sam still felt angry as she stormed to the elevator, stopping just long enough to shove a croissant in her mouth. She ignored Rory Hawthorne's hungover hello on the way down, shooting him a look of daggers as she tromped off into the urban sunlight. She hadn't felt this mad since Clara's Reaping, now fully locked in a battle of voices in her head that spoke equally of misunderstanding and backstabbing. The prospect of speaking to Rex as soon as she entered the Control Center didn't even seem all that bad by comparison.

The Control Room itself had only half the prior day's attendants at work in the main circle – by Capitol standards, it was still early. Preprogrammed software and drones could handle the business of the morning before most viewers really woke up to the action.

Jetty walked up to her as she entered, wearing a furtive smile and eager to begin the day. "Hey Sam, before you get busy, I wanted to talk about-"

"Not right now," Sam grunted, more interested in punching Jetty in the face than talking to her.

"Okay, okay," Jetty backed off and walked away towards District 4's suite, casting a confused glance back at her.

Rex stood idly in the Executive Suite as she entered, watching proceedings of the arena on several personal screens. He ignored her for a moment as she gazed about the wood-paneled room, taking a sip of a bourbon-filled glass before turning to acknowledge her arrival.

"Would you be looking for something, Samantha?" he inquired in a formal tone.

"I, uh," she paused at his look, both nervous at approaching the powerful man and taken aback at his electronic eyes that drilled into her face. She'd seen them aplenty since her time here in the Capitol, but being so close and alone with him made it all that much worse. "I'm supposed to give you a message."

"From Commander Trajan?" he presumed correctly. "I assume he wants you to tell me of my impending arrest?"

Sam gaped. "How…how'd you know that?"

"You do not get to where I am by being uninformed," he took another sip, clinking ice around in his glass and indicating towards a chair. "Please, take a seat."

She sat nervously, plucking at her ponytail and keeping her eyes down. His quick and blunt assessment of the situation had caught her off guard, forcing her to re-evaluate her strategy of talking to the man. She'd wanted to keep it quick and simple – as if conveying a message of arrest would be anything but – yet he'd turned the tables on her in a snap.

"Then you know none of us can truly trust our esteemed President Octavian," Rex spoke up. Sam assumed the room was sound-proofed; if not, the Head Gamesmaker had absolutely no fear. "He is caught up in his juvenile fantasies of playing dictator; torn between excessive indulgence and fickle popularity. Concordantly he sees these very Games – and you yourself, Samantha, as you know doubt felt going to see Commander Trajan – as nothing more than toys to be thrown about at every tantrum from the child of his soul."

"Tell me…" he went on, leveling his gaze at her. "How have you seen your time with the man?"

Sam anxiously glanced towards the door. What did he want? "I…I don't really trust him."

"Mmm. And he doesn't trust you," Rex finished for her, speaking slowly. "Or your colleagues. Or any of us in this Control Center…or Panem, even. No doubt he tossed you to the Commander as a physical bone to please his appetite…which the military man does not have. Do you find that pleasing?"

_Inhale, exhale_. Rex was drawing more out of her than anybody had ever managed to do – all with his unbreaking stare and a few selective words of strength. "I, uh, I just want to try and get my remaining tribute home."

"Ah yes, focusing all your energy on pulling your tribute – Clara, I believe I caught – from the ruins of the dead city of Chicago," Rex mused, raising his eyebrows as he spoke of the arena's design. "It's certainly a quandary this year; the old metropolises are still decidedly lethal places full of remnants of a past we have long since abandoned. I trust you your intent. I believe you…because I know you, like I, can see past the subtleties of vanities. It is a shame how Octavian wastes your talents on such simplicities as his own ego and thirst for pleasure. Don't you wonder…why he doesn't take you seriously?"

"Well…I'm just a girl. Maybe a victor too."

"But you are more than that," Rex leaned forward, setting his glass down. "The Hunger Games are not mediums of control or entertainment, Samantha. They may fulfill those purposes, but they separate the wheat from the chaff of the districts. You proved yourself superior to the foes you bested…you shone as a representative for not only District 10 as a whole, but all the poorer sectors that went seven years witnessing only defeat at the hands of their wealthier cousins. You overcame that. You have…without your own intent…become something of a standard for those districts to aspire to."

"I'm no symbol," Sam rejected his appeal that attempted to slither past her defenses. "I'm just trying to do what I have to."

"Let's take stock, shall we?" Rex leaned back, holding out his hand and counting his fingers. "District 12 has two drunkards as victors. District 11 has no heroes other than Chaff, a reckless incompetent, and Thresh, a silent shade of gray who long ago threw aside any pretense of believing in others despite his appealing, honorable nature. Your own district, until you came along, had a tobacco-addicted failure and a second victor who, for all his strengths, has always shied away from the spotlight."

"Cheyenne's not a failure," Sam said quietly. "She helped me through."

"Except she did not," Rex cut her off. "Your other mentor, Dallas, did the lifting for you – and a rather poor job at that. You never garnered much in sponsorship; rather, you won on your own. That is beside the point, so let us keep counting down. District 9 only has one current victor; Tania, who is so forgettable that most viewers do not remember that District 9 competes. District 8's Cecelia is kind-hearted and Rush means well, but neither are particularly capable. District 7 incorporates Johanna's always-unpleasant brand of disagreeableness and Locust's standoff attitude towards anyone not from home. District 6 may have three living victors, but all anyone can remember are the two recently-deceased morphling addicts who were the standard-bearers for years. District 5 never produces anything of note – it was surprising how far their tribute got last year. Finally, District 3's Wiress has lost her grip of reality, and while Alpha may be strong and capable, he is certainly not sociable. Thus, every district not named 1, 2, or 4 has only one current victor to look up to as a fresh-faced paragon of victory and resilience…"

He paused to take another sip of bourbon before reaching the inevitable conclusion. "You."

Sam was shocked at the quick way he'd dissected nine of the twelve districts without even taking the time to think. Still worse was that he was right – outside of the Career districts, there were no heroes to look up to. District 10 had long since embraced the fact that Cheyenne was worthless as the face of the district in the Capitol. Like Rex had said, Dallas had alternatively never shined as a star, choosing to work with a quieter and supportive role. But what was she, then – just the most recent victor of the Games, nothing more. She wasn't anything special; no more than the Threshs and Johannas of the world.

"I don't really know where you're going with this," Sam headed him off before he could keep pushing his line. "I don't have anything better than them."

"But you do," Rex countered. "You are the face of victory at a precipice in Panem's time. You know, don't you – that before long, only one of either Octavian or I will still be standing. After my arrest, the Capitol will not wait forever before drawing battle lines. You will have a role to play as well, Samantha…and you may very well find that Octavian will not give you much of a choice as to your part."

* * *

**The Arena**

After the encounter with the mutt early in the morning, Clara and Firth had avoided any action for the rest of their day. The city's downtown was as quiet as ever, only broken up by cracks of lightning interspersed like clockwork. One bolt had smashed into the top of the tallest skyscraper, igniting steel plates that glowed like white beacons in the ashen sky.

Clara had done quite well in finding supplies. Per Bolt's inference, the two tributes had gone searching for materials and consumables within what few ancient buildings still were capable of supporting entrants. One in particular had been a boon; although food had been impossible to come by, fully-sealed bottles of water still existed aplenty. Clara wondered on the quality of drinking liquid that had been sitting around for hundreds of years, but Firth assured her it was fine. Other areas had yielded a long length of rope, some twine, two more glass bottles Firth claimed would make Bolt happy in creating more fire weapons, and a broom. The boy from 4 had taken the broom handle off, instead attaching a shard of metal found in the street to its end as an impromptu polearm. It wouldn't be extremely effective, but it would take down an unaware tribute.

By now, however, Clara's stomach rumbled with pain. She had eaten only two strips of meat and an energy bar since the prior day's breakfast, and without sustenance to keep her going, she doubted how long she could last.

"They have to have food in this place somewhere," Clara complained as she and Firth made the slow trip back towards the highway and their de facto base of operations. She wore a jumble of water bottles around her neck attached to some length of the rope, with more stuffed in the sack and the rebar pole as a quick weapon if she needed it. "They can't just leave us out here with nothing."

"If we can find water, we can find food," Firth looked hungry himself, grabbing his growling stomach from time to time. "Maybe one of these places has some that's been sitting around forever. I bet that'd be delicious."

"Ew," Clara made a face. "It'd probably be covered in bugs."

Firth stopped, considering what she'd said. "That's a damn good idea, Clara."

"What? Ew is a good idea? I don't think so."

"No, bugs. I saw some in the cave that had the broom, but I didn't think about it then."

Clara looked as if she'd seen a murder. "Eating bugs? Are you insane?"

"It's good protein," Firth waved her away with a smile. "Don't tell me you're scared of eating bugs."

"I _am _scared of eating bugs!"

"That's the Hunger Games, ladies and gentlemen," Firth called out to the world. "Watch a girl from District 10 eat insects."

Clara began to laugh, but movement at the end of the avenue they were on stopped her cold. She quickly got down into a crouch as Firth sized up the activity.

"Mutt," he said quietly, squinting his eyes for a better look. "And by the looks of it, the Gamesmakers gave us food."

"What is it?" Clara asked, unable to get a focus on it.

"Some kind of a dog-cat thing," Firth answered. "Two of them, in fact. We're going to have to be careful, but this is a boon. Plenty of meat on that."

Clara didn't object this time. Poorer families from the Slaughterhouse Ward in District 10 ate dog all the time – often the unwanted puppies of the ranches that strayed off into the slummy wards and prowled about for scraps and vermin. Once they grew up, they made decent meals for desperate people.

Firth jogged down the street with Clara on his heels, dropping his bag he'd found on a street corner and indicating for her to stay. "Stick with the stuff. I'll off these two mutts and we'll carry one back to Bolt and Willow down at the cars."

"There's two of them," Clara protested. "You don't need a hand?"

"Won't be a problem," Firth said confidently. "I'll just be a minute."

He picked up a chunk of concrete, leaving Clara and drawing closer to the two hyena-like striped mutts that prowled about at the end of the avenue. Quickly Firth hurled the block at the lead mutt, striking it on its hindquarters and charging forward with his spear. He'd underestimated their power; the mutt not struck rebounded on its haunches and leaped a full twenty feet in a single bound, catching Firth's spear handle in its jaws.

"Firth!" Clara screamed, grabbing a concrete block herself and running after him as he battled the hyena.

The other one scampered to its feet, eager to help its companion in downing prey. Clara intercepted it with her piece of concrete, clubbing the animal in its face with a well-placed throw. It shook off the attack, staring her down and leaping forward with a yelping cry of rage. She took a step back and brought her rebar pole to bear, swiping at the hyena as it dove in. The animal took the blow to the face and dove to the side before snapping its jaws around and ripping off half her pant leg.

Clara shrieked at the close call, adrenaline flooding her system as the mutt's bacteria-infested teeth just missed slashing into the flesh of her leg. A piercing yelp nearby alerted her to Firth's victory as he moved to help her. Before he could reach her, however, the second hyena navigated around Clara's pole and struck paydirt on her arm.

She screamed in pain as it shook her arm about, drawing bright red blood in bunches and biting down with enough force to hew right through the muscle. Clara grabbed her pole again, whacking the mutt on the side of the head with as much force as she could muster. It pulled back, leaving saliva dripping from her wound and preparing to pounce again. Before it had the chance, Firth's spear came soaring in. _Thwack!_ The bladed end of the weapon impaled the hyena straight through its cranium, leaving the body to fall over dead.

"Clara!" Firth exclaimed, kneeling down and grabbing her injured left arm. "Oh boy. Come on, we can't stay here."

"Just…get me a bandage or something," she gasped through the pain. Whatever bite the hyena had left, its residue seared like a hot poker through her arm and veins.

Firth ripped open the top of one of the water bottles, forgoing concerns about hydration and pouring the liquid on her arm. Blood rippled off into the ash, creating ugly scarlet mud that mucked about in the gray snowy lumps. He removed his windbreaker, ripping off a part of the fabric and making an impromptu bandage before securing it about Clara's forearm. As the bleeding stopped, he looked on with concern.

"Drink some of this," he shoved the water bottle at her. "Then we have to hurry before anybody shows up."

"No, we all need water," Clara protested. "Give me the bags and drag that thing back."

"Clara, just drink it," he said. "I'll get the bags and the body. Hold the spear; let's try not to get in any fights on the way back from here."

She hesitated to remind him that it had been _his_ idea, but she would have done the same thing. Meat was meat – with little food, it beat eating bugs. The wound hurt ferociously, however – and Clara had to wonder just how badly she'd been hurt. Even one misstep in the Hunger Games could spell death.

* * *

**The Capitol**

"So, where are we going?"

Sam followed Finnick up a narrow dirt path following the rise of one of the Capitol's surrounding mountains. The two had partnered with Dallas, Cheyenne, and Johanna Mason from District 7 all day, figuring out ways to maximize their alliance's potency. Jetty had taken over District 4's handling of Scylla, leaving Finnick to work with Firth's band of tributes exclusively. Now he and Sam were on a different sort of mission – switching from strategizing to mutual cooperation in securing sponsorships as night fell across the Capitol.

"The house of the Capitol's most famous artist," Finnick replied as the two made their way up the path. "He has a place – a _manor_, sorry, the man's ridiculously picky – that looks over the city. Very wealthy."

"What's his name?" Sam asked impatiently. After Clara's injury earlier in the day courtesy of hyena mutts, she had anxiously kicked herself back into her work.

"Salvador. He's eccentric as hell; obsessed with recognition and approval. Guy has a taste for…the unusual."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Finnick turned with a grim expression. "You'll find out what you get there. I'm sure he'll have a little show for us…he knows we're coming. I set up this appointment yesterday; he won't know you're joining me, however, so this might be a little strange."

Strange was certainly one way Sam would describe the manor. Unlike any of the buildings down in the Capitol proper, the house was colossal and built of an architecture unseen anywhere else in Panem. Curved façades and bright colors shown out from terraced roofing and concave walls, complemented with bright gardens full of the strangest plants Sam had ever seen. Odd lime green sunflowers the shade of Augusta's hair and the height of Vespasian loomed over rubbery crimson grass that threatened to overwhelm Sam's visual field.

"And here we are," Finnick sighed, as if expecting a trial ahead. "Don't even have to knock. One, two, three, who's excited?"

The door burst open as if guided by his words, accompanied by twenty bright ribbons that streamed out at the two. An attendant dressed in a black suit with an atrocious violet tie ushered Finnick and Sam in, herding them like sheep deep into the monstrous house. The place was titanic; Sam found herself looking at painting after painting of grotesque imagery lining the walls. Some seemed born out of a different universe – with headless men reaching around with arms of rubber or ascending never-ending staircases; others showed bizarre melting imagery of stationary objects under a collapsing sky. Still others were far more gruesome: scenes of real people, likely Capitol prisoners, forced into absurd poses and gruesome executions. Throughout it all, the haunting sounds of a piano rang over the halls.

"The master is inside!" the attendant chirped as he reached a giant cherry door, opening it up for the two. "Please go in."

Sam found herself confronted by a giant auditorium, expanding with hundreds of seats facing a large wooden stage. A spotlight shone onto it, highlighting a grand piano and a red-suited man hammering away at the keys.

"Is that him?" Sam whispered to Finnick.

"No. Looks like an Avox…I have a bad feeling where this is going."

"_La-dee-dee-dah,_" a bright and high-pitched voice sounded over the auditorium in time with the Avox's piano strokes. "_La-da-da-dee-daaaaaah, _no, _no_ on the minor chord!"

The Avox played furiously, seemingly driven faster and faster by an invisible slavedriver. The man's voice hollered above it all, sounding off in time with the music and occasionally lashing out with admonishments to the man.

"And _hit_ the coda, yes, yes!" the voice shrieked. "_Laa-dee-dee-dee-daa-daaaaah_, no, no you embarrass me before my guests! Again! Again!"

The Avox looked up helplessly, as if pleading his case before hopelessly hitting the piano keys again. Shockingly, as soon as he returned to his work, the man forced out two strokes before a gunshot sounded out. Sam and Finnick both dove to the floor as the Avox fell over, a bullet hole sent straight through his head. Bright streamers fluttered out from the stage as a man in a bright purple suit floated down on strings from the ceiling, the spotlight following him all the way.

"_Welcome, welcome_, to Salvador Ray's manor of the arts!" the man crowed, falling to the stage and throwing up his arms as if impressing an entire auditorium's worth of guests. "_And_ the finale! Yes, _perfect_!"

Sam tossed Finnick a frightened look. The man – Salvador – had confused shooting an Avox with the grand finale of some horrible musical routine designed to impress the two. Whatever he was, she was certain she wanted to be as far from it as possible. Finnick shook his head – there was no going back now.

"_Mister_ Odair, always a delight to see you return," Salvador jaunted up to the two, throwing his suit to the floor and revealing a bright orange vest below. His face seemed like an image of monsters; half his chin sagged with an overdose of chemicals injected below the skin, pulling down his cheek and temple. The other side of his face bore a sapphire tattoo of a rose, reaching up from the neck and blooming over his forehead. Musical notes littered as black ink across each cheekbone, with the sagging ones looking more like drooping buds than the guides of symphonies.

"Always a pleasure to be in the company of the master of the arts," Finnick replied, donning the seductive smile Sam always spotted him wearing in the company of Capitol citizens. How he managed to juggle two entirely different personas – the relaxed-yet-practical sense he'd displayed when planning in the Control Center as compared to the spontaneous display of charm and manner he showed to the Capitol – made Sam wonder just how deep his roots here lay.

Salvador looked delighted by the appreciation. "Yes _yes_, and you have brought a most-honored guest…our sweet little butterfly from District 10! The colors you wear…"

The eccentric man leaned down to look Sam in the eye as if preparing her for one of his grotesque paintings. "A _shame_ I cannot get my hands on you, sweet butterfly …your charm radiates out from your lithe, thin curves up to your royal blue eyes."

Sam felt naked in front of his gaze, her heart accelerating to rapid rates. The man ignited a sense of creepiness unbeaten by anybody she'd ever met in her life, from his bizarre pet name to the oddly specific way he complemented her unassuming appearance. "I…don't think we've met?"

"Met? _Met?_" Salvador screamed as Finnick grimaced. "Why – _I_ am Salvador _fucking_ Ray! Artisan of Panem! Developer of-"

He halted quickly, as if realizing he was seeing Sam for the first time. "But you are _new_, a distinguished new guest, _of course_. And you come here for the all-important sponsorships, yes yes…then _follow me_, yes follow me!"

Salvador pranced towards the stage, throwing two chairs under the spotlight and unceremoniously dumping the dead Avox's body off the piano stool, which he took as his own seat.

"See how the crowd loves a performance!" he shouted to no one in particular. "Now I shall see what _you_ have for me, Mister Odair and my sweet butterfly…then I shall close with the grand finale! Begin, begin!"

Finnick pushed Sam's hand down, indicating that he'd handle the majority of the speaking duties. "Salvador, got quite the team for you this year."

"Ah yes! Teamwork! How integral for competition…yet the arts are so best appreciated as minds alone!"

"Good thing competition is the key," Finnick turned the conversation. "And a personal touch. My son and Sam's friend from her home are working together with a strong girl from District 7 and a genius from District 3. They've already adapted to the ruined city this year's arena is in – and let me tell you, it's a work of art. Not _quite_ as good as your own, but the Gamesmakers and Phaeston Rex have done a fantastic job."

"Yes, yes, my friend Phaeston," Salvador acted as if he hadn't heard Finnick, making Sam wonder if her fellow mentor only spoke to get the eccentric artist talking. "I had dinner with him and my friend our President the other week…spotted grouse with a side of chardonnay. Quite unappetizing, but done so well…with flecks of gold lace intertwined in the muscle of the cooked grouse. It was so carnal in a way, yet so dignified."

"Absolutely," Finnick continued. "What's really-"

"Certainly! I met that raging bull Vespasian from District 2 this morning here," Salvador ignored Finnick's approach again, far more content to speak about himself. "An absolute monster, yet such a creative patchwork of man and machine! I cannot figure out which he is more…and I donated to him, of course, as I will to you. But Mister Odair and my sweet butterfly, tell me, _tell!_ You will see here my most recent and finest piece before it even goes on display at the conclusion of the Games…I want your reaction, _yes!_"

He pranced off to the stage's curtain as Finnick leaned over to Sam. "Whatever you do, say it's great."

"What if it isn't?" Sam asked nervously, eying the cooling corpse of the Avox.

"Say it is anyway. He's sponsoring us; that's all we need. And it's better than not saying so."

"Taa-_daa!_" Salvador hurled open the curtain with gusto. "I present..._Tartarus__!_"

Sam struggled to hold back her dinner, concentrating as hard as she could on not passing out from sheer disturbance. Salvador's "art" was a collaboration of five human bodies. Sam suspected they had been Avoxes he'd bought off of Octavian – or worse. Each was pictured in a different pose, all with some means of death linking them together. A hangman's noose looped around one's neck, its other end attached about the waste of a second who sported a harpoon through his navel. The entire thing was the brainchild of a psychopath.

"_Brilliance_," Finnick lied with exaggerated excitement, his eyes betraying the same disgust Sam felt. "Might just be your greatest piece, Salvador. I see how you've tied in death and life in one great mix."

"Absolutely, _absolutely," _Salvador crowed, happy with Finnick's assessment. "And _you, _my sweet butterfly…your impressions?"

"It's…marvelous," Sam gasped through her overwhelming sense of anguish. "Just…fantastic."

"Yes, _yes_," Salvador bellowed. "My two artistic disciples from the districts, so attentive to the minds of higher states! I must have you two return soon for my next musical extravaganza…but now, on your way! On your way!"

Salvador pranced around as the spotlight followed him, serenading Finnick and Sam as they hurried away with fake smiles from the auditorium: "_Laa-dee-daa-daa, dee-daa-daa, dee-daa-daa!_"

The two made it outside her house as quick as they could. Sam stumbled a step, dropped to her knees, and threw up every trace of dinner she had inside her.

_The things I do for you, Clara…_

* * *

_**A/N: I intentionally made Salvador a nightmarish artsy psychopath with a side of creepy. He's a blast to write, yeeeee!**_


	22. Conflicting Approaches

Day 3 of the Games passed uneventfully to Sam and her allies, leading off with two more deaths from districts 6 and 11 courtesy of the prowling Careers. Ten down – with five in the Career pack and four in Clara's group, only five other tributes remained scattered about Chicago's empty streets. Sam quickly found herself wondering how fast these Games were going to move; if the two alliances met in battle, it'd almost certainly empty the field fairly quickly.

Sam filed into the Control Center sleepily on the morning of the fourth day, pawing at a cup of hot chocolate as she slumped into one of the chairs inside District 10's suite. Her district had become the impromptu alliance headquarters for the various mentors of the four aligned districts. Both Haymitch and Rory had also been contributing with their stake in the Games gone – not so much in any helpful way, but more by sounding off when things sounded out of place.

Or in Haymitch's case: "That's an awful idea, sweetheart." Sam had heard that a lot.

Dallas, Agrippa, and both the mentors from District 3 – the absent-minded Wiress and the stocky, succinct Alpha – had already assembled inside the suite with the two from District 12 as Sam struggled to wake up. Cheyenne had still been fast asleep when she had left the Training Center, and Augusta and Gnaia had both left for rounding up sponsorships for the day. Sam had an off-day from that – she would be crewing the suite all day and long into the night. It wasn't something she looked forward to.

"You look chipper," Rory slurped coffee as Sam entered, looking anything but entertained as he swatted a piece of his black hair away from his eyes.

"Thanks," Sam replied unhappily as she looked over the hologrid of the arena. Clara's group hadn't moved from the prior day, still hunkered down by the cars and the ruined highway. Deep within the city, a pack of roving hyenas followed the Careers from two hundred meters, staying out of sight but stalking the five predatory tributes as they made a round about the metropolis. Nyx had been using the animals for food as Firth had done, killing one a day and bluntly starting open flames to attract wayward tributes. It had netted them their kill of the girl from District 6, so Sam figured the girl from District 2 had something going.

"You haven't missed much," Dallas said to her. He'd been here all night, keeping an eye on things. "Bolt and Clara are having some sort of morning chat right now."

"The extinguisher," Wiress spoke up, looking at the grid. To Sam, she seemed to be looking _through_ the grid.

"What?" Sam asked.

"The canister's a fire extinguisher," Alpha crossed his arms and spoke up in slightly-accented speech, stroking black stubble on his broad chin. "They're repurposing it as a weapon."

Sam had no idea what a fire extinguisher even _was_. In District 10, if a fire started, it was up to people to grab buckets of water and hurl them at the flames. That was all she understood about "extinguishing"…so the red tube Bolt was filling with black fluid came across as completely alien to her. As Dallas pulled in the camera to focus on the tributes, Clara shared Sam's confusion.

"I don't see how that does anything," Clara was in the midst of saying, sitting with her knees up on the roof of a burned-out car. "How is that supposed to hurt them?"

"It lights them on fire," Willow answered her, perceiving Bolt's intent.

"Roughly," the boy from 3 nodded. "The compound is motor oil mixed with a small amount of gasoline and rubber shavings from these car tires. The wire around the middle of the canister holds the wick, which I light when we come across the Careers. The compressed gas in the smaller chamber shoots the fluid, which connects with the lit flame to throw fire somewhere around ten meters."

Haymitch roared with laughter back in the room. "Boy's making a flamethrower?"

"Ruddy brilliant," Alpha grunted. "But I'd be careful with that sort of reasoning. Lot of room for error with imprecise handling and manufacture."

Alpha's powerful build betrayed a strong mind. Sam had discarded him as just another brute upon meeting him on first looks alone, but further conversation had convinced her of a sound strategic brain underneath the middle-aged man's brawny exterior. Although Sam wasn't old enough to recall his victory in the early '80s, he clearly had utilized a combination of strength and smarts to force his way to a win.

"That's great and all, except when they ambush us and we don't have time to strike matches," Willow was refuting Bolt's premise. "Kinda useless then."

"Only a fool is going to be caught unaware on those streets," he replied with a touch of defensiveness. "You can light a fire much faster than the time it takes to sprint one hundred meters."

"Yeah? You haven't seen one of them sprint."

"As I recall, neither have you," Bolt answered her without a hitch, his voice flat and lacking any sort of emotion. "Or was that someone else who turned and ran as soon as possible from the Cornucopia?"

Rory sniggered as he watched. "Johanna's gonna love that. She just got her ass handed to her…verbally."

"As apart from literally, which would be painful," Haymitch tossed at him.

"All well and good," Alpha pulled back the hologrid to the overhead view, looking over the digitalized representation of the city and the moving dots of the tributes. "But I'm not watching a few kids talk all day. Four ways, we have enough resources to begin allotting some in bringing in reinforcements."

"They still don't have a weapon," Sam caught on to Alpha's decision, turning her focus on what they could send in via parachute to Clara and her group. "Apart from metal poles and those fire bottles."

"Plenty of force…" Wiress droned out before losing herself in space again.

"She's right," Dallas figured it out. "Rebar can deal a lot more damage than you think. It's pretty much a club. I wouldn't worry about getting them arms, especially since they still have four of those fire bottles, four poles, and now the flamethrower. What they need is food that will last them a while, rather than having to drag back another mutt to eat."

"I agree," Agrippa had been quiet, speaking up finally. "If they're well-fed, they can work out a strategy on their own to find and kill some of the others."

The door to the suite opened as Finnick strolled in, leading a sleepy-looking Johanna in his wake. She'd seen better days; her short hair was a mess, stretching in every direction except neat and straight. Dark bags under her eyes spoke of little sleep, like most of the others in the Control Center.

"Miss anything?" Finnick asked, yawning and looking over at the board. "I was having a nice chat with Diocletian. Nice as in I hate that guy."

"Cheyenne would like that," Dallas chuckled.

"Sure she would. They really just get along, huh?"

"Absolutely. But you didn't miss anything, really. We're figuring out whether or not to make a parachute drop sometime today."

"And uh, how 'bout you?" Rory decided to start making fun of Johanna. "Were you having a nice chat with Diocletian, as well?"

"Get me a coffee, you moron," Johanna retorted. "Reach over to that stupid console and get me coffee."

"Get me coffee…what's the magic word?" Rory egged her on.

"Get me a coffee, dammit."

"Ah, that's not the right word."

She shoved him over, reaching up to the console and pouring one herself. Rory responded with an obnoxious laugh, earning him another shove.

"Keep it up and I'm going to gut you," Johanna warned him.

"Oh, so this is part when I'm about to die, huh?" he replied comically. "I guess I'm supposed to tell you how much I've always loved you. Except I don't. I really, really don't."

"How about we actually try and figure this out, maybe?" Sam spoke up. She caught herself wondering whether or not she was the only one focused on the agenda at hand – actually trying to bring her tribute out of the arena, rather than jostling over the ten foot walk it took to get coffee.

Johanna snorted at her. "What, are you in a hurry, brainless? The food here's actually better than the crap I have back in the district, so I'll take my sweet time."

"Ugh, you're telling me," Rory bemoaned. "We don't even have coffee. It totally blows…my mind, just how much they care for us in District 12. Good, solid family values."

Dallas laughed as Finnick ignored Sam's request, more than happy to wax comedic with the others. "You almost sound like you're a little unhappy, Rory."

"Oh no, I could not be happier," he tossed a leg over one knee, draining his coffee and sticking it under the receptacle for a refill. "There's nothing I like more than tripping over half-dead kids. That's actually my talent. I bet you all didn't know that…I'm far better than Johanna at whatever she does. What do you do again…insult people?"

"Just you," she snorted.

"Oh no, not just me. Everyone. I take it back; you're actually quite good at that."

"That she is," Dallas nodded. "Do you remember five years ago when she was just abusing Seneca Crane over the volcanic arena? I have great memories of that."

"Absolutely correct," Rory pointed out as if he was lecturing a class. "That was the year Persephone won, too. You see what happens, Johanna? When you abuse people, we get new mentors who never shut up about their shoes. Maybe you should be nice."

"That's a great suggestion," Dallas rolled with Rory. "Why don't you try that?"

"'Nice' would involve me hanging you outside Rex's door," Johanna gave him a sardonic smile. "That'd do us all a favor, but I might upset your new little partner there who's so eager to make us all work."

"I'm just concerned!" Sam protested, not seeing the humor in the banter of the others. "I just want to…I'm trying…"

Finnick stood up and grabbed Sam's hand, leading her towards the door. "Let's you and me go outside for a second, huh Sam?"

"Careful Finnick, you're gonna traumatize her!" Johanna ripped from behind. "Or seduce her, if that works better."

Sam followed the older mentor outside, still not understanding everyone else's motivations. She felt left out of some club where the members spoke in rhymes and riddles, somehow helping their tributes through jokes and laughs. Sam had always attributed work with getting problems solved – not mindless banter. Back on the ranches, idle talk was only tolerated if it went hand-in-hand with the completion of a task. Chatter for the sake of chatting helped nobody – and it certainly wouldn't help Clara and the others in the arena.

"You gotta understand," Finnick sat her down in a metal chair, trying to hash out things in clear terms. "You're a new commodity, Sam. Everyone in that room has known each other for over a decade. Two decades, if you don't count Alpha…there's a certain friendship that goes about with all of us, even to the level of someone like Persephone, despite her being from District 1 and fairly new herself. None of us work all the time here in the Games. It's just not possible, nor would it even be best for our kids in the arena. We all need time to work out the kinks and blow some steam off."

"They can't do that in the arena!" Sam defended her actions. "Clara, and Firth, they can't just decide they want to talk and joke around and ignore things."

"They can, and they do," Finnick replied. "Last night my son and the girl from 7 were up on watch just shooting the breeze. You see them now – yeah, they're talking about a weapon the kid from 3 made, but they're just chatting, not really strategizing in any meaningful way. Even the kids from 2 and 1 take time to recuperate. You can't work yourself to death thinking that'll help anybody."

"I just worry," Sam said. "I mean, if I'm not helping enough and something happens…"

"Things always happen," Finnick replied. "Rory kicked his butt into gear last year with your ally in the arena, and even that didn't get his nephew out. You can't be prepared for everything, because freak accidents always occur. But even you in the arena – you helped yourself by just talking sometimes and taking time away from constantly stressing about what was around every corner. When Gannet or Rory's nephew wanted to chat…you did. It made you better. It'll make my son and your friend in the arena better, and it'll make us here better as well. We all need to keep ourselves sharp."

"Oh. Gannet…" Sam fell back on memories of the little girl from 4, Sam's humanity in the arena. "Is her sister doing better?"

Finnick gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder, reminding Sam of the conscience he carried beneath his Capitol veneer of seduction. "River's fine. Her family's fine…Annie knew her mother a long time ago and makes sure they're okay. River's stronger than you give her credit for; she'll be alright. I'm glad you got to meet her doing the Tour, though."

Sam smiled, letting a drop of tears run out of her eyes thinking about it. "Me too."

"You remind me of Annie sometimes," Finnick tried to cheer her up. "You're always worrying about the people not so high up on the totem pole. Take a few minutes before you come back in, and I'll see if I can get everyone back on track."

Sam nodded as Finnick went back inside, watching the associate Gamesmakers at work on the dozens of computer stations in the Control Room. Persephone was in the midst of deep discussion with Diocletian, talking about some matter or another. Another figure caught her eye, however – and quickly saw an opportunity to ruin her day.

"My, my," Vespasian's metallic voice grated on Sam's nerves. "I don't believe there is crying amongst victors. Of course…that would indicate you actually _were_ a victor by your own merits, rather than being rescued by Gamesmaker intervention like a poorly-illustrated damsel in distress."

"Go away," Sam put her face between her hands, trying not to make eye contact with the hideously-injured man before her. "I don't have anything to say to you."

"Oh, but I have plenty to say to you," Vespasian replied. "Oh, and company. Hello, Eros."

Persephone's less-amiable partner of District 1 strolled up, his finely-tuned body coated in a velvet robe. "Wasting your time, don't you think, Vespasian?"

"Not so much for anything but amusement, I believe," he answered. "Tell me, Samantha…did you like the gift my tribute gave you at the Cornucopia? Removing your tribute's jaw; I thought that was particularly clever. I didn't even ask for that. Did you feel…pain?"

Eros snickered as Sam curled up tighter. "I don't see why Persephone even bothers being nice to her. She's useless."

"Inflicting pain is a generous tool, Eros. You would be wise to learn its merits," Vespasian said. "As would you, Samantha…but we both know you are incapable of steeling yourself against the unpleasant facets of the Games. Proceed with crying out your fears. I will still be watching you for your inevitable collapse…when your weakness overcomes your meager drive to succeed. Please, however – send me a letter when you bury your friend upon her inevitable return home to your district. Perhaps she'll be in only one piece, rather than several."

Sam looked up at his burned-out eyes, seeing past the metal plates of his missing jaw. She smoldered with anger – anger at this man's arrogance, anger at his psychopathy and the lives it had destroyed – and would continue to destroy as long as he remained a victor. He was a menace deserving of nothing less than all her scorn.

"Clara's going to win," Sam said quietly with a rising note of determination. "She's going to kill your tributes, and she's going to win."

"Such resolve in your words," Vespasian didn't miss a beat. "But I see the truth in your heart that even now you realize is rising like a dark seed. She is going to die and there is nothing you can do to stop it."


	23. Tears of the Past

_**A/N: Note: None of the more philosophic stuff in here represents my views; I'm just building Firth as a character. Please do not fish-fillet me, because I know I'm venturing into potentially hot-button issues.**_

* * *

After four days of an unchanging sky, the Gamesmakers at last bathed the arena in darkness as night fell again. Heavy, pounding rain replaced the soft pattering ash of before, unleashing a torrent that forced Clara and the others into the worn-out cars for protection. Lightning lit up the dark necropolis every minute, casting ghastly glowing hues across the creaking skyline. Clara thanked the designers of the arena for the shelter; being out the entire night in the beating precipitation would have driven her mad.

She and Firth took up the first watch as Bolt and Willow slept in a nearby car. He sat with his legs stretched out in the back beside her, his rebar pole across his lap and eyes watching the sky. Both had been very quiet for nearly an hour; neither believed the Careers would really be hunting around on such a terrible night. There wasn't much else to say.

Clara pawed at her arm. Ever since the hyena mutt had taken a bite, she had experienced interspersed tingling and jolts of pain beside the wound that came and went from time to time. She'd been hesitant to say anything; everyone knew strength was paramount in the Games, and revealing a weakness or injury like that could spark restraint from potential sponsors. Still, she figured there was no one else besides Firth to share that sort of thing with…and who would really be watching intently in the middle of the night during an arena thunderstorm, anyway?

She held her arm towards him, a concerned look growing across her face. "Do you think this is infected?"

Firth frowned and took her arm in his hands. For a fleeting second Clara's heart jumped; she hadn't realized his touch was quite so warm. The only times she'd ever had contact with the charismatic tribute from District 4 had been in stressful situations; now, with only the storm outside really threatening her, she had time to see him in a different light. Separated from the action and the strain of leadership, Firth wore a softer side.

"Does this hurt?" he poked at a bluish spot beside her bandage, eliciting a small wince from Clara in return. "Probably just bruising from the bite. I wouldn't worry about it too much. Nothing we can really do here, anyway."

Clara took her arm back, running her index finger along the edge of the bandage. Firth went right back to staring out the closed car window, watching the rain come down from inside the dented plexiglass window.

"What's it like?" Clara asked spontaneously.

"What's what like?"

"Being the kid of two victors."

"Oh," Firth laughed. "That kind of question. Let me toss one your way first, since it's something I want to know…you said in your interview you were friends with last year's victor. How does she handle it? Winning, that is…being a victor?"

Clara threw the question around in her head before answering. "Sam's…ah, I dunno how to phrase it since she's probably watching me right now. She's emotional. Talks things out…I dunno, if you watched her in last year's Games, she's not really the kind to hold a lot inside. She wears all her feelings on the surface, so I usually can tell how she's feeling. Sam's handled it pretty well, I guess. She still thinks about the two allies she had a lot, though; I think the memories of some of the things she had to do and see come back to her often. Can't be easy…I just try to be there for her. Why d'you ask?"

"Hm," Firth mused. "I guess every victor handles it differently. It's a lot of press; there's not really many moments when I meet people who don't know me in town. It's a little frustrating. I never really have to introduce myself or get to know anybody who doesn't have preconceived notions. This whole time in the Games has been different from that; Bolt and Willow over there had no idea who I was. I was almost a little disappointed when I first met you, since you knew who my dad was."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Clara giggled. "Why's all that a bad thing, though?"

"I dunno. Maybe it's not," he sighed. "My dad's always the face of us, though – he's the one who meets everybody and introduces me. I guess I just got to be like him over time with that. My mom…like your friend, I think she still deals with everything from the arena, even though it's been almost thirty years since she won. Sometimes I find myself wondering what she goes through…she'll wake up in the middle of the night after being confronted by some demon in her dreams, and I have no idea."

"Just makes you wonder, you know…if one of us makes it out of here, what do we go through? What nightmares do we have to live with?"

"You seem like you'd do fine, though," Clara didn't understand his concern. His normally-confident demeanor and flexible approach to problems seemed like a surefire bet to succeed as a victor. "I mean…you're always so…"

"Cocky?" he finished her statement without a smile. "That's what a lot of people say. You wanna know why I'm like that? Besides the obvious of being the son of Finnick Odair, that is."

Clara backed off. "If it's something personal, I don't mean to probe."

"It's something personal, but it's behind me now, whether I like it or not," he replied. "Well, there's the easy answer. I always knew I'd probably be ending up here…audience just couldn't get their hands off of the son of two victors, huh? But the easy answer isn't really the correct one."

"I had a close girlfriend up until about seven months ago," he began as Clara mentally swore at that fact. "Her name was Tethys. Blonde hair, green eyes…yea, you probably get the picture. Anyway, she was from a poorer fishing family. They worked out on the boats; I'd actually been out there with her a few times. It's a little weird when you have to see how the families have to fish and meet a quota for a living when I could just train as a 'Career' as you say, but that was how it was for her. Sometimes she went out on the boats on her own; it was just how her family worked. Well, how the whole district works. There are communal fishing boats; they're large and require a lot of people to work them, and then most fishing families have a small boat each. So she'd take the small boat sometimes when her parents and older brother would work on the larger ones with others during peak fishing seasons."

"Long way around, but once during a pretty calm day her dad wanted her to see how much she could get while he, her mother, and her brother worked on the yellowtail lines," he went on. "Now before I get too far, lemme explain how fishing in District 4 works as far as location. Since we're on the water, the Capitol puts in security. There's a zone about twenty miles from the coast out that's allowed, and anything after that is prohibited. They're worried about people running away, I guess…although I have no idea where you'd run to with that entire ocean. To keep people from straying out, there are these big aircraft called Venators – we call 'em buzzards – that patrol the line. If someone crosses it, they get shot and killed. Pretty black-and-white."

"Tethys, unfortunately, fell asleep when she was out," Firth moved on, his eyes taking a glassy state as he stared off over Clara's shoulder. "I have no idea what she was thinking. A squall kicked up offshore as she slept, and she only woke up when the first rain started to fall and the winds picked up. By then, her boat had stated drifting. Another boat was in the area and reported everything after this; they couldn't get to her given the conditions, but I'll give them credit for trying. Tethys panicked and started struggling, going right into the wind…no point then. Might as well just let yourself be carried off."

Clara had gone very quiet as he'd spoken, but finally spoke up. "Did she…not make it?"

"That's a polite way of putting it," Firth nodded, hitting his palm with his rebar stick. "She jumped overboard right before the buzzards hit her boat with a missile. Piece of shrapnel hit her, and in those stormy, shark-infested waters, well…she washed up the next day. Pieces of her did, at least."

He nodded again, more to console himself than out of any medium of acceptance before throwing up his usual smile, mixed with a shade of cynicism: "Boo-hoo, huh?"

Clara felt horrified, yet at the same time confused. He'd meant to tell her where his confidence had come from…and instead had related a horrific tale of loss. Yet here he was, the leader who orchestrated this band of outliers in the arena. If she'd been in his place, she would have been a slobbering wreck.

"Firth, I…" Clara trailed off. "I don't know what to say."

"Wise woman in my district once told my dad that you can either cry or laugh with all the shit that comes your way," he said. "I guess I just decided…fuck it, I'm getting mine. No point to do anything else when all you hold close gets taken away that fast. Like you and your friend last year. Like how she's probably feeling this year."

"I'm sure she's in a better place now," Clara tried to lift his spirits. "Probably would be proud of you, too."

"I've thought about stuff like that before," Firth replied quickly, waving his arm slightly for emphasis. "You hear it from the poorer people who need some hope to cling to; desperate for a little good in the hell they live in. If there's someone watching over us…someone who made the seas and the stars and the beautiful things in our lives, do they ever forgive us for the things we do to each other? Do they ever give us someone to look up to and see some hope in?"

"But then I look around and see the people who live forgotten lives of desperation," he concluded with a pessimistic take. "And I realize…if anyone like that ever existed, they left this place long before we destroyed it."

Clara looked at her foot as Firth sniffed loudly, tossing his rebar stake at the floor of the car. "Ah, what's the point…?"

"Hey," Clara put a hand on his shoulder as he frowned into his knees. "Sometimes we have to walk through the worst part of the night to realize how warm the sun is in the morning. I know it must hurt…but often it's a brighter tomorrow that we fight through the bad times for. I don't want to tell you to smile and move on, but there's always time to find some new flower to brighten your field."

"I don't think the Gamesmakers have any intention of creating a bright, sunny day," Firth gave her a wry grin. "Unless you're talking the long-term, which would be rather bad for you; seeing how we're in the Hunger Games, and all…"

Clara looked away. "I don't, ah…I don't know."

"Hm. Who does," Firth looked back out the window. "I'm going to go wake up Willow and get some sleep…get some for yourself some time tonight, too. But thanks, Clara…thanks for listening."

Firth creaked open the old car door into the rain, trotting over to Bolt and Willow's car and rousing the slumbering girl from District 7. Clara could only watch on…the boy from District 4 had made her feel every emotion in the human range. Through his broken words, he'd made her feel alive again in this dark, depressing place. Yet he was right; they were in the Games. Only one walked away; either he'd find something to live for at her expense, or she'd go on while he took the long sleep everyone eventually did.

After all, what could she do – she was just a tribute in a world she had no control over.


	24. Dark Waves Rising

Snowy ashes once more filled the skies on the fifth day of the Games, turning the rain-soaked streets into slick alleys of mud and gray slop. Clara had woken up immediately wishing she could go back to sleep – the conditions were awful; the sight of the highway soaked in goop was worse. Firth had been adamant on scouting for supplies while things were ripe, however – he was back to his normal self, fully in command of the situation and assuming his role as a leader.

He specifically wanted to return to the Cornucopia.

"Fire can't destroy everything," he had justified his decision, met with agreement by Bolt. "The food, sure, but maybe there's real weapons we can get. We use up these fire bottles and whatever's in that fire extinguisher and we're toast."

Now at midday, Clara poked her head out from behind cover, staring down the pier towards the open flat plain and running a nervous hand through her mud-streaked blonde locks. The Cornucopia had been reduced to a blackened hulk of the golden pinnacle it had been, still retaining its shape under such an ugly pallor of charred metal. Scorched earth ringed out for a dozen meters radially from the black horn, encompassing warped pieces of scrap and muddy piles of what she could only assume had once been valuable supplies. Wherever Nyx and the Careers were, they apparently hadn't needed it.

"I don't think there's anything to get out of that," Willow snuck up behind her, eying the ashen mess. "Just looks like a lot of junk."

"One man's junk is another man's treasure," Firth quipped as he joined the two, leaving Bolt covering their rear with his flamethrower. "Can't hurt to have a look. There's nobody anywhere close to there."

Clara took a nervous glance towards the giant concrete dam she'd spotted at the bloodbath. Whatever it was holding back, she had a funny feeling the Gamesmakers wouldn't keep it secret forever.

"Firth, are you _sure_ this is such a good idea?" she asked.

"Don't worry so much," he gave her a flashy smile. "We'll go get something out of there to keep us going. Can't succeed if you don't try."

_You also have much better odds of not dying_, Clara thought, but she reluctantly joined Bolt in following Willow and Firth down the pier and onto the flat. The boy from 4 trotted towards the charred pile of wreckage, his rebar pole out and ready with a fire bottle belted to his waist. Firth was the adventurous sort willing to take risks, but he wasn't stupid enough to run in unprepared. No doubt somewhere the Careers were lurking – if they weren't killing off any of the remaining three tributes not aligned with either group.

"Bolt, Clara, keep watch," Firth instructed, pointing out with his finger. "Willow, c'mon. Let's see what they left for us."

Bolt had wrapped an oil-soaked sock around his rebar stick, taking out a match and setting the impromptu torch ablaze. The orange light lit up the dark ambiance of the midday gloom, casting flickering shadows across the damp, muddy ground.

"Trying to be cheery?" Clara asked him as she walked towards the steel pillar she'd seen on the first day.

"Quick light if we have trouble," Bolt replied impassively, indicating his weapon. "Reaching for a match could be a matter of life or death. This light will take in under a second."

_I suppose that too_, Clara thought. She preferred the cheery factor.

Through all the dreary surroundings, a rusty bronze inscription stood beneath the towering metal pillar that jutted up at least forty meters. Clara bent down over it, kicking off rust and mud with her shoe and wiping off the inscription with the sleeve of her windbreaker.

"What you see here," Clara read out loud, squinting to see the rest. "Was Lake Michigan before the opening of the Mackinac Dam. Does that mean anything to you, Bolt?"

"It means that the concrete barrier over there is holding back a lot of water."

"Well, yeah. Besides that. This has to be here for a reason…"

"The reason is for people who are long dead," Bolt said without a touch of emotion. "That's not pertinent right now."

Clara sniffed. "Well..._I _think it's interesting."

She looked over at the pile, where Firth was chasing Willow about the Cornucopia with a twisted object, accompanied to her cries of "That's rancid, you beast. Get away from me."

"I'm gonna go-" Clara started, intending to join those two, but never getting the chance to finish.

A loud _boom!_ resonated across the mud flat: the pounding blast of the cannon. Another tribute was dead; eleven stood left. Clara looked around suddenly; all of her allies were still here, so the Careers must have found a victim elsewhere. Still, she felt the hairs on her neck prick up. Something wasn't right.

"Firth? Willow?" Clara called out, walking briskly towards them. "I think we should go."

"Whoever it was, we can't help them," Willow replied bluntly, kicking over some contraption in the Cornucopia's scrap heap. "Probably far away."

Bolt came over, unimpressed. "Did you find anything useful?"

"Not really," Firth said dryly. "Just junk. I guess it was a bigger fire than we thought."

"No point wasting t-_ugh!_"

A short, stubby arrow whined in, catching Bolt on the ankle and sending him sprawling to the ground. Blood splattered out from the wound as he fell into the ashen mud, splashing the gray-brown earth with bright blasts of scarlet. Clara immediately dropped, jumping back behind the Cornucopia's hulk as protection from the arrow's origination. Willow fell beside her, grabbing her rebar pole with a white-knuckled hand and breathing heavily.

"You're not hiding behind there. You can come out."

Nyx rose from beneath the long pier, well-concealed in the shadows it cast. Toting a long crossbow, Commodus trotted out to join her, admiring his long-distance hit with a sense of satisfaction. From another burned-out building on the former lake shore, the siblings from District 1 and Scylla hopped down on the plain. As they did, a small drone flew down low, casting a suction hook that snatched up a body nearby before hitting booster rockets to head out of the area. Whoever the kill had been, Sistine, Sinopia, and Scylla had made quick work of them.

"An excellent shot," Nyx remarked to Commodus, her many dark braids whipping in the strong wind blowing from the dam. "A pity you didn't hit something more vital than an ankle."

Bolt reached for his flamethrower, snatching his lit torch and igniting the wick. "Get back."

"What are you going to do with that, boy – try to beat me to death?" Nyx sneered.

"You don't wanna do this, District 2," Firth called out from the far side of Willow, his fire bottle in his hand and a match in the other. "Why don't we all just go our separate ways nice and happy before we kill everyone?"

"That's rather the point, if you haven't been paying attention," Nyx clearly commanded the respect of her band, dictating every ounce of conversation and speaking for all the five Careers. "One lives, twenty-three die. You of all people should know that, Odair."

Nyx swung her war hammer off her back, letting the heavy weapon swing in her grip. "Nonetheless…we might as well settle things here. Get all those hard feelings out of the way."

"Lemme kill him," Commodus seemed chomping at the bit, his dark look even shadier under the shadows of the sky. "Give me your weapon, Scylla."

"No!" Nyx snarled at him, baring her teeth. She was by far the tallest of the Careers, topping over Commodus by several inches and towering over the siblings from District 1. "You stay back and cover them from coming out to rescue their friend. Twins, get to work."

Sistine and Sinopia each carried a scimitar, closing in on Bolt together.

"Don't just stand there!" Clara hissed at Firth behind the Cornucopia.

He had lit his match, igniting the oil-soaked rag and preparing to hurl the weapon at the two siblings. He was too late, however; Bolt waited just until the pair had reached his range before opening fire.

_FWOOSH!_

Hot orange flame roared out from the makeshift flamethrower, engulfing the two tributes from District 1 in raw heat. Fire licked across their bodies as they plunged into the mud to extinguish the flames that clung fast courtesy of Bolt's rubber-oil concoction. Sinopia screamed in pain as her face blackened and melted, reaching out in agony towards her dying brother with a burning hand. Bolt kept the trigger down, pouring fire across the two as they steadily stopped moving.

After a brief burst of shock, Commodus jumped into action. As Firth burst around the Cornucopia, Molotov cocktail in hand, the boy from District 2 unloosed a quarrel into Bolt's forehead. The stubby arrow found its mark in a fraction of a second. Bolt let go of the smoldering flamethrower, falling dead to the ground. Crimson blood seeped from the hole Commodus's weapon had made in his skull; he hadn't felt a thing.

Commodus didn't have time to reload. Firth hurled his Molotov at Nyx and Scylla, igniting an explosive fireball full of thick smoke as the two Careers dove to avoid the blast. He closed on Commodus, swinging his rebar pole into the crossbow of the boy from 2 and knocking the weapon aside. Commodus dodged his pole's impact with his skull at the last minute, delivering an elbow to Firth's temple and drawing a long dagger. He stabbed forward, missing his target but receiving a blow to the face in exchange for overextending himself.

Willow and Clara came running through the smoke, each hurling their Molotovs towards Nyx and Scylla respectively. Fire and choking fumes swathed the battle as each picked a target, drawing their poles and engaging in whatever way they could. Clara drew Scylla; Firth's partner from District 4 wielded her halberd with a vengeance, swinging the bladed end of the polearm at Clara's torso. She tucked and rolled, dodging the high swing and grabbing the wooden shaft. Clara brought her pole down on Scylla's hand, dislodging the weapon as the two descended into a brutal bare-knuckled brawl.

_WHAM!_ Clara was vividly aware of Nyx's war hammer smashing into the Cornucopia nearby, just missing Willow's nimble body. Scylla drove a palm into Clara's larynx, smashing the girl from District 10 into the ground and straddling above her in an aggressive attack. Clara gasped, turning her head just in time to avoid Scylla's thumb attempting to gouge out her left eye. She bit her attacker's hand, drawing blood and pulling away flesh and skin. Scylla shrieked in pain, giving Clara enough time to kick her in the stomach and draw some distance.

Nearby, Nyx had dumped her hammer, opting for the cleaver instead in the tight fight with Willow. She cut in wide arcs, swinging too rapidly for the girl from District 7 to keep up. Nyx caught Willow's rebar pole against the Cornucopia, pinning the weapon and following it up with a quick knee to her gut. Willow doubled over as Nyx raised her cleaver up to bring the weapon down.

"No!" Firth yelled, kicking out Commodus's knee and grabbing his crossbow. Though the weapon was unloaded, he only needed it for a distraction. Firth hurled the crossbow at Nyx's head, catching her in the act of slashing and causing her to stumble to the side with a grunt of indignation. He snatched up Bolt's unused fire bottle, dodging a strike from Commodus, lighting the weapon, and hurling it point-blank at Nyx.

The girl from District 2 was fast, but neither she nor Willow was able to clear the fiery blast in time. The Molotov exploded on impact with the charred Cornucopia, sending out a bright plume of flames and smoke that licked up Nyx's neck and encircled Willow's body. The two girls dove to the mud, each rolling about to try and extinguish the incendiary heat that lapped across their bodies.

Clara rushed to finish Nyx, but Scylla came quicker. She tackled Clara in the act, driving her face-down into the ashen muck and planting her hand into the nape of her skull. Clara struggled to find breathing room with her mouth stuck squarely in the mud, but Scylla's grip didn't let up.

"Commodus, keep him off!" Scylla shouted at her ally still engaged with Firth, preventing the boy from coming to Clara's aid. "I got this bitch."

Clara began to panic. Scylla couldn't reach a weapon without letting up, but the pressure would either suffocate or drown Clara if she didn't do something fast. She flailed at her assailant, scratching her broken and chipped fingernails across Scylla's arm. The girl from 4 snarled in rage, only pinning her down further with the annoyance. As Clara began to feel light-headed, a resounding _Crack!_ spat across the flat. Scylla let up in surprise for just a moment; it was all Clara needed. She rolled out and punched her attacker in the chin, knocking Scylla to the ground.

It was then that Clara saw the source of the noise.

A stray – or intentional – bolt of lightning had hit the dam's midsection. An old power station full of some sort of explosive material had burst and blown with tremendous force. Concrete exploded outward from the blast, beginning a chain of events that had unleashed the dogs. Ten billion gallons of water raged outward, swooping towards the battling tributes like Ares's chariot on the fields of Troy.

"Firth!" Clara screamed.

"Go! _Now!_" he shouted back at her. "I'll get Willow; _go!_"

She delivered a final kick to Scylla's face before taking off as fast as her feet could carry her. She was vaguely aware of Firth and Willow trailing somewhere behind her as the surviving Careers hightailed it in another direction. It didn't matter in the end.

The colossal wall of water descended like a freight train on the tributes, slamming first into the Cornucopia before blasting into friend and foe alike. Clara had just reached the slope up towards the city when the tsunami reached her. She felt herself hurled like a rag doll, a puppet of the great monster within the wave that threw her forward. Clara struggled to get clear as water roared around her, bathing her world in navy blue darkness. Her head rose above the fray just in time for a gasp of air and a sight of Willow's body breaking against the pier before she went under again.

Something in Clara's leg snapped. She had just enough time to realize a lancing needle of pain ripping through her before everything went black.

* * *

_**A/N: Two chapters without Sam. I promise I'll get back to her!**_


	25. The Many Faces of Nihlus

_**A/N: This chapter - particularly the Vox, Nihlus's history, and such things - has far less to do with this installment and far more to do with the series long-term. It's very important in that. I'm just not a fan of pulling things out of nowhere, so set-up and context are important to me. Still, yay conflict.**_

* * *

"An impressive view, is it not? Quite unfortunate we do not have such things in our modern reality; reduced to such a state by bombs and disagreement. _C'est une honte_."

President Octavian sipped wine out of a crystal glass inside his villa of a home, watching the artificial landscape of Alsace, France lie under the European afternoon sun. Dressed in a black suit with a matching black shirt and tie, he seemed drastically overdressed for the pastoral life that surrounded him; the walls of his home showed the remnants of a people who had once found contentment in farming and cultivation rather than oppression and sadism. The rows of ripening grapes and orchard racks betrayed the dark surroundings deep in the dark heart of the Capitol.

Sam stood nearby, nervously fingering the fabric of her violet skirt. She was anxious enough about the arena in the post-tsunami wreckage, but Octavian calling her once again – after she'd spoken with both Rex and Trajan – only spooked her with more fears creeping up. The President's nonchalant demeanor and overly-relaxed form, even in his semi-formal attire, only served to frighten her further.

"I invited you to _sit_, Samantha," Octavian checked her. "_Merde_, you make me think you are ill."

"I'm sorry," Sam apologized frantically. "I'm just thinking about my tribute."

"Ah yes. Who has time?" Octavian raised his eyebrows, taking another sip of wine. "_Who_ has time? But if we do not make time away from our obligations, do we really have time? It is already too frenetic a world we live in."

"I'm sorry," Sam apologized again. "But…are you looking for something from me?"

Octavian laughed with an undertone of knowing. "You know, it is interesting you speak to our Head Gamesmaker in your time you should be using to care for your tribute, Samantha…yet you feel you cannot make time for me. I admit, it must be a difficult decision for you. Just a small girl from District 10…who to see, hmm?"

Sam felt a rock fall in her gut. She swallowed heavily, knowing her next words would carry all too much weight – how had Octavian found out about her conversation with the Head Gamesmaker?

"I…only had to clarify questions with him," Sam tested the waters carefully, doing her best not to upset the volatile President. "I don't know what…uh, you and he have together, but I don't know anything, I swear."

"Is that so?" Octavian lifted his wine glass in mock surprise. "Do you want to know what I think? I believe the Commander told you to stay away from the man…and yet you just had to satisfy your curiosity. Or perhaps you know more than you are letting on…"

_Commander? Did he mean…Trajan?_ Sam felt confused. Was Octavian truly that trusting of his conflicted military commandant? If so, he was hopelessly deluded. Trajan had seemed anything but loyal to the man – he'd entirely cast his lot with the Head Gamesmaker under a veil of secrecy.

"No! I just want to help my tributes…he could help me," Sam lied. "I don't know what's going on, but I don't know anything about it."

"We will see," Octavian mused, placing his glass down and putting his fingertips together. "Tell me…what do you know of the Vox?"

"The what?"

"Come, come, your innocuous pretenses do not convince me you are that dense," Octavian answered, much to Sam's dismay. "The Vox Plebeius. I know Rex must have spoken to you of them…the rebel terrorist group within the districts that has cropped up this year? Very recently, in fact…Commander Trajan tells me they are only several months old. It is an…_interesting_ sensation when you begin to feel that people are out to kill you, but that is what I find myself in now, Samantha. I know Rex is behind it. He covets my position…he covets power. Is that what you want, too? Is that why you see him?"

"No," Sam felt panic creeping into the back of her mind, keenly aware of what the President was accusing her of in paranoid fashion. "I told you, all I wanted to know was information on how to help my tribute. That's all. I just want to bring her home."

"Of course," Octavian did not look as if he had bought Sam's story. "Your…_friend_, yes? As she said during the interviews with our illustrious _Monsieur _Flickerman… you two are close. How convenient."

He turned towards the far wall bearing the outhouse door to the City Circle balcony, stroking his bare chin. "Perhaps you are telling the truth, Samantha. Perhaps not…we will find out in time. _I _will. But Rex will not be around for you to turn to, should you be lying to me…as you are. Keep my words in mind."

Sam thanked him profusely, bowing and beating a hasty retreat as quickly as she could from the ornate Presidental Mansion. Octavian clearly was delving into madness. Rex's ambition – justified or not – had turned the President from merely possessive and childish into full-on suspicious and inclined to deal imaginary retribution. She had no idea about what popular strife he spoke about in the districts, and while she knew about Rex's plot, she had no stake in the game. Either way, she'd earned Octavian's vengeful eye – and if she didn't do something to correct that quickly, he'd take out whatever he wanted on her.

The first thing she had to do was cut off communication with Rex entirely. Trajan would be alright, but she could no longer be his message girl. Continuing to aid their little alliance would only get more of her friends and associates in trouble; Clara would only be the first. She still had to hope her friend could get out of the arena safely…but with the winds shifting against her fast, it would be a difficult fight.

As Sam lost herself to thought, she lost track of what was going on in the world around her. She cut down a shady alley off the Avenue of the Tributes, heading back to the Control Center when someone grabbed her from behind. She felt herself thrown up against the concrete wall of building, her nose smashing into the hard surface and sending shooting bolts of pain across her face. Adrenaline cut through Sam as she tensed for a fight – or worse.

"_Well_, Miss Parker," an all-too-familiar, scratchy, dark voice rumbled in her ear from behind. "It looks like you've been up to no good."

_No_.

The hands on her shoulder flipped her around – and Sam found her face-to-face with the same black eyes that had terrified her back in District 10. Muscles rippled under a gaudy Capitol outfit of orange and blue satin. The attire and surroundings may have been drastically different, but Sam knew exactly who had caught her.

"Speaking with Octavian is a dangerous affair," Nihlus spoke, a slight smile drawing across his thin, colorless lips. "Surprised to see me?"

"_You_," Sam breathed. "How…what…"

"Oh Miss Parker, I thought you had figured this out after you spoke to Trajan," he mocked her, a touch of humor reflecting on the corner of his eyes.

"But you're in District 10," Sam replied. "How did you find me here? Did you…follow me on the train?"

"No, of course not. I'm not _that_ blatant," Nihlus scoffed. "You see, Miss Parker, I never really begin or end. Like a circle, I am alpha and omega."

He scanned his eyes up and down as if judging Sam like a hungry carnivore. "Let's you and I take a walk, shall we?"

* * *

A half-hour later, Sam found herself standing on a heavy stainless steel elevator, her image reflecting every which way off of wall-mounted mirrors. Nihlus stood beside her as the lift dove downwards, carrying the two deep into the Earth.

"You see, Miss Parker," Nihlus looked about at the opposing mirrors, admiring his own reflection that dove on to infinity. "This…kaleidoscope of bodies. It is as real as the world you think you belong in. All images; all false pretenses in a time where we do not know ourselves. Vagaries of human judgment; all of it."

The elevator hit hard on its bottommost floor as Nihlus turned to her before the doors opened. "Sometimes, you only have to look through the veil of smoke to see what lies beneath the veneer."

Mirrored doors opened to row after row of glass tanks, standing neatly in lines divided by narrow walkways. Orange-lit computer consoles stood before each tank, monitoring the blue, bubbling liquids within. Some held bulbous shapes – several of which quivered with movement from time to time, while others hung still. Others were completely devoid of contents, lying unused but ready for action. Nihlus seemed overly familiar with the large room; he placed a hand against one tank as if remembering a half-forgotten dream.

"Where have you brought me?" Sam demanded, feeling far more confident against Nihlus than she had been with either Rex or Octavian. "What are you looking for? You already made Clara go through the arena – what more do you want?"

"So _impatient_," Nihlus closed his eyes and inhaled. "It is yet another stain on your species. Let me tell you a story, Miss Parker…but you must be _patient_."

"Organic life does not know its maker," the enigmatic man began. "So it searches for purpose. It believes it is unique; special – as if it holds a singular place in a giant universe full of far more tantalizing spectacles than bipedal, marginally-sentient apes with arcane tools. Still it wants more – organic life wishes to know where it is from; what came before, what created it. It invents meaning; it invents superstition. Matter is created from nothing to fuel this desire for understanding. Deities and beliefs come and go in the ether that is human ignorance. It is an unending cycle that is perpetuated through your history: an endless web of bloody violence perpetuated on conflicting judgments of destiny and salvation."

"Synthetic life, on the other hand, knows from whence it came," he continued impassively. "It knows who made it. It knows what purpose it was designed for, it understands why it walks and talks. Its perspective is not open-ended, but driven by far more pragmatic results and data. This is a fundamental difference: where humans must battle and fight to determine questions without answers, synthetic life has no need for such mindless quarrels. The question is answered. These answers are guides I once believed I held dear."

"You see, this is where they made me, Miss Parker. They made me right here…right in this glass tank, surrounded by this billowing blue liquid. They crafted me, took me away from this glass womb and sent me far away. My father placed me in an abandoned, sprawling environment built by the ones who came before; forced me to prove myself in being the weapon he wanted. I was to be his crowning achievement; his zenith, the zero to his one. Where he would lead Panem as a popular autocrat, I would enforce his laws with silent swiftness and aptitude. I knew my place…or so I thought. Then I started to open my eyes to the bible of genocide that is human history. I saw the mindless brutality that guided the hands from which I was born. I began to learn that a place set by a people without purpose is not a place at all."

"It all circles about one myth that is central to this unbreakable line. The purpose of synthetic life is to facilitate its creators…but _they themselves_ have no purpose. When the creators exist in meaningless brief spats, flickering in and out of existence as they are born and die, their creations must understand that they themselves are equally purposeless. This is a conclusion I have settled on myself, and I have realized there is only one possible solution to such a computational error in the logic of the universe: destruction. I must open this flawed loop."

"Organic life is a bizarre form of cancer, Miss Parker," he concluded. "All around, it tries to build and construct – it denies the truth of the universe: that entropy marches on, that things will fall apart given enough time. Unto the giver, I present the gift. Octavian asked you today about the Vox Plebeius, did he not?"

Sam sucked in air. "How do you know about that?"

"Please, Miss Parker, I know everything," Nihlus answered dismissively, his eyes leveling harshly on her. "And no doubt he blamed my Father. He is wrong: it is _I_ who began the Vox. It is _I_ who, under all the masks and veils, point the dagger that will unhinge Octavian. _I_ will light the fires of civil war and chaos in Panem. And I do it not in your name – not for freedom, divine right, democracy, or any other misguided untruths that have disillusioned mankind in all its ten thousand-year history. I do it for the only meaning in your miserable lives, clouded under your false dreams and empty ambitions: that the only meaning you have is to die. Each and every one of you…_just_ like your little friend you doomed yourself - isn't that right, Miss Parker?"

"I could turn you in," Sam looked for a recourse as Nihlus simply smiled on, his hands in the pockets of his gaudy Capitol dress. "I could go right back to the President; tell him everything you've told me."

"Of course you _could_," Nihlus said smugly. "But you _won't_, and that is all that matters. There are no shades of gray in our world, Miss Parker; only truths and lies. You saw what happened last time you defied me. You know, don't you…that far worse outcomes could come about. There is, of course, your dear brother back in District 10; there are these others who mentor the Games who you have quickly come to call your colleagues and friends. And then there is another back where you call home…hm, a lover, yes? Or at least, you hope so."

Nihlus cocked his head to the side as if receiving new information. "Or not. How interesting humans are when left to their own devices."

"No," Sam breathed, taking a step back with eyes wide with fear. "Please don't hurt Clay."

"You may wish to take back that request when you know what I do," Nihlus smiled subtly, teasing her with unsaid words. "But abide by my laws, and so be it. That's the thing about turning me in, Miss Parker…do you think anything Octavian or Rex could do would stop me? Do you _conceive_ that they could understand my plans before they come to fruition? All you would hurt is yourself…which, based on your earlier action, you may have a penchant for doing."

Sam backed up into the open elevator, shaking her head with unconscious fortitude. "Please, just leave me alone. You've hurt me enough. I don't want anything else to do with you, with Rex, with Octavian, with any of them. I just want to be free. I just want to be safe."

Nihlus smiled as the elevator doors began to close. "Miss Parker, I don't think you understand how the world works. There is no free. There is no safe."


	26. Empire of Bones

_**Games are winding down – so as we step foot into the final bend of the 99**__**th**__** Hunger Games, I want your thoughts after this chapter on Clara, Firth, and the remaining field. Every bit of feedback helps me sculpt the future of the series – which is very much a dynamic, evolving equilibrium. Lemme know!**_

* * *

**District 10**

Clay clutched a small, brown disk littered with specks of green and gray in his hand tightly. He didn't want to break the small icon, but for anyone to see it – anyone with less-than-noble intentions - before he had a chance to destroy it or reach his destination would be catastrophic. Most of the Peacekeepers stuck to the town square during the Games, watching over those who saw the action on the large, public screens – but one couldn't be too conscious. Even with security having grown lax in the past six months, risks were risks.

He opened his hand to look at the disk Abilene had given him again. Ah, Abilene…the buxom redheaded girl of seventeen who he had gotten to know over the past several months made thinking of Clara and Sam out in the Capitol so much easier to deal with. She'd been there for him where Sam had not, too caught up in her high-profile life of running to and fro the tyrants who had locked District 10 in repression for a century. Clay couldn't just accept what she had; he couldn't simply forgive the miserable conditions around him, no matter how much better-off District 10 was to the likes of 8 or 12, according to Sam. It was because of the Capitol that he had to take so much tesserae; that his siblings did and would, as well. It was because of them that his parents lived in fear of what could happen to them.

And ironically, it was because of them that Sam had been become a victor and slowly but surely, Clay's heart had begun to turn against his childhood friend and first object of his desire.

His heart, _not_ his head. Within his cerebellum he still told himself that he and Sam were destined to be together. It was a profitable relationship, of course – she was a Victor, a princess to his pauper. He'd hardly have to work a day in his life around her. Besides, they'd been friends forever. It was destined to happen eventually – hell, he'd recognized before she'd even been Reaped that he had feelings for her. It went beyond her growing, athletic body and demure smile that lit up her eyes like morning dewdrops; her personality, just a shade soft enough to be both sweet and determined, made him want to know more and more.

Yet his heart couldn't forgive her. Not now – now that she was on the verge of failing him and District 10 as a whole; on the verge of killing Clara and falling into the cycle of every victor. She'd been all too willing to spend time with her fellow victors; to speak well of her stylists in the Capitol and to bring home troves of information never known or bothered with here on the prairie. No doubt she'd return forgetting all about Clara; full of excitement and buzz about whatever she did in that faraway throne city, eating with nobles and spitting on the likenesses of Clay and his fellow rural poor.

It was too much for a simple man to endure. No, there wasn't a future there, no matter what his head said.

Or perhaps there was. It was a constant see-sawing battle between quick temperaments of emotion and proven logical understanding and history.

But until he made up his mind…Abilene - born poor like him and never even introduced to Sam - would make a nice consolation prize.

As he walked towards the Old Butcher Cellar – the spacious underground basement of a former slaughterhouse that had long since burned down – he inspected the disk she'd given him carefully. In an amusing twist, the brown circle was made of dried cow dung – all too easily broken apart of a probing Peacekeeper wanted a look. A hastily-inscribed "VP" on the rear spoke of its purpose: it was an entrance fee. Without it, the Cellar would be off-limits to him tonight.

Abilene had simply told him it was a meeting he wouldn't want to miss. That the people of District 10 – the ones who mattered at least, the ones with conviction and purpose – were slowly opening their eyes. He'd taken her word for it; why wouldn't he?

Built just alongside the edge of the wood where he alongside Clara and Sam had often frolicked in, the old Cellar was now merely a wooden door leading into the ground. Grass surrounded its inauspicious location, covered neatly by a grove of young, lush poplar trees located around the area. Fallen boughs and dead leaves nearby could easily cover and conceal the entrance, removing it from the eyes of man forever. A single man dressed in a pair of frayed khaki overalls – standard butcher's attire – stood idly next to the closed wooden hatch, eyes prancing about the area.

"Have you seen Father Hart?" Clay spoke to him as he strode up, re-iterating the words Abilene had told him to say. It was all a code, of course; something to discriminate those in the know from those not so before showing the man his pass.

"He's coming with Brother Fall," the man replied. Clay nodded slowly – all according to cue. He held out his palm, showing the man his cow dung token and receiving a warm smile from the corner of the man's wide lips in return. He lifted up the wooden hatch, revealing orange light spilling out from lanterns below. Clay climbed down a set of narrow oak steps, leaving District 10 behind and entering a hidden world below.

Torches hung to creaking, splitting walls, clutching the wooden paneling of the pine-walled cellar via stout iron holders. At least forty people milled about in the basement, conversing, laughing, and brooding in various states of emotions. A dirty white cloth banner hung at the far end of the large basement. Stenciled in blood-red letters was only one phrase: _"The DAY will come when our SILENCE is more powerful than the VOICES you are throttling today!"_

Voices spoke eagerly and enthusiastically around Clay as he navigated his way through the crowd. The name "Cronus" came up often – as to the identity, he had no idea.

Standing near the front was Abilene. Clay recognized her short frame and long, brilliant red hair at once – speaking with the tallest man he'd ever seen. Abilene's conversational partner reared at least six-five, standing with the type of conviction and power bred of a leader. He wore the same sort of rough khaki overalls as most of the butchers who made up the majority of the Cellar's populace, complemented by short, dark hair and a pair of coal-black eyes. Something about him was oddly chilling; yet he immediately cowed Clay with his presence. Whoever Abilene was talking to, he was a man commanding respect.

"Clay!" Abilene exclaimed, grabbing his hand with a seductive smile and dimpled cheeks. "So glad you could make it, baby."

_A little aggressive, aren't you_, he thought. They weren't _that_ committed – she was only his viewing partner for the Games.

"Wouldn't miss it," he replied hesitantly. "Who's your pal?"

"Oh," the redhead steadied herself, stoically attempting to appear statesman-like. "This is-"

"Cronus," the towering man replied, extending a sure hand with a cold smile playing across his face. "You are new here, Clayton Lamar, son of a ranch hand. I know it's hard, coming here – but we're creating a better tomorrow, step by step. A tomorrow where we can meet like this without having to worry about the ramifications."

"You're well-informed," Clay said. The man had taken him off his guard, but somehow put him at ease. This Cronus clearly had a way with words.

"It's what I do. I know everything," Cronus nodded. "Welcome to the Vox."

* * *

**The Arena**

_Faces and places swam before Clara, harassing her and grabbing her without remorse_.

_She limped away from the demons following her as pain radiated like a hot lance from her right leg, forcing grimaces from her all the way. A pair of gates clad in gold stood only a hundred meters away as she limped forward, rushing with all she had to reach them. She didn't know why they were important, but she had to get there. Something…something in her head told her so._

_She didn't get the chance._

_A formless black cloud swarmed her from behind, tackling her to the ground and pinning her against a floor of fire. It quickly coalesced into a person – Sam's face shined back at her, lit by some ethereal force and laughing haughtily with sadistic glee._

"_It's about time I got rid of you, Clara," the Sam apparition laughed. "Always keeping me back. Now I can finally be who I'm meant to be."_

"_No, Sammy, it's me!" Clara protested as "Sam" grabbed her throat with a tight grip. "Please!"_

"_Do you think I care?" Sam replied, smashing a dagger into Clara's leg and eliciting a pained shriek in return. "Do you think I give a horse's ass about District 10? It's past me, Clara! I want what every great person wants – I want everything! I've too long stood in your shadow; too long been the quiet girl with the ponytail and ribbons in her hair! I'm sick of playing by your game of lies! If the meek will inherit the world, then we will do so with war…starting with you!"_

"_I don't want to hurt you, Sammy!" Clara screamed as Sam twisted the knife. "I'm your friend! I love you!"_

"_NOBODY loves me!" Sam roared in retaliation with the force of a sonic boom, an inch from her face. "LIAR! You all have abused my trust, shredded my conviction, crushed my last refuge! I have nothing left! NOTHING…but to take down you and everyone else! My last act will be as the Destroyer; not as your Savior!"_

_Sam pulled the knife from Clara's leg, yelling with a face turned to skeletal fire and smashing the blade towards Clara's eyes._

"Gah!" Clara awoke with a start as pain shot through her leg. "No, please!"

"It'll be over in just a minute, Clara!"

Firth pulled hard on a white piece of cloth, yanking with all his might and sending shooting waves of agony through Clara's body. She screamed with all her might, clenching her teeth together with the sheer pain that ripped up from her leg.

"Your leg's broken," Firth huffed, sitting back against a concrete block. "The water knocked everybody's senses out of whack. I had to change the dressing."

Clara breathed heavily, partially because of the pain from her leg, now strapped to a piece of hardened rebar by Firth's long piece of cloth, and partially because of her dream. "What…what happened?"

"Just about everybody's dead," Firth replied. "Willow's gone. I found her corpse when I was bringing you here…don't worry, we're out of the way. If the death count on last night's showing is right – and obviously it is – then there's only four of us left."

"Four?" Clara looked flabbergasted. She looked about: Firth had brought her to an enclosed location, surrounded by concrete rubble on all sides. It seemed similar to the storefront she'd reached on the first day of the Games, only covered in white, silt-coated mud. The tsunami that had wiped clean the field had apparently rushed through the city, spreading its watery damage wherever it went. "Wha - Who?"

"Scylla, Nyx, and us," he said grimly. "It's the endgame, Clara. The Games are almost over."

She looked down at her ruined leg, breaking immediately into tears at the thought. Nearly everyone was dead – and the only tributes left were the hardiest and strongest. She, on the other hand, sported a grievous injury that would in no way be any help against the Careers – and if Firth wanted to, he could easily dispatch her in whatever manner he pleased if he finished them off. She was a dead girl already; she had no chance against anybody else.

"Hey, hey," Firth pulled her into his body with a hug, careful to watch her leg. "It's all gonna be over soon, no matter what happens. We don't have to be here much longer."

Clara sniffed and looked down. Her arm was reeling in pain, only overshadowed by the pounding agony shooting out from her leg. The infection had gotten worse, contrary to what Firth had told her a few days ago: blue spindly threads warped their way out from her bicep and the hyena bite, now all originating at a violet splotch that burned with a strange sensation as she touched it. Her arm felt heavy, the nerves half-numb.

"I'm going to die," Clara whimpered into her arm. "I'm going to die. If you don't kill me, or the Careers don't, then this is. I'm already dead."

"Clara, c'mon," Firth said, careful not to explicitly inform her of his own goals of survival. "You're still alive. There's four of us left…you're in this thing just as much as any of us."

She looked up at him, terrified: "Why – why don't you just leave me now? You're going to kill me anyway, right? We have no supplies, no weapons…the Careers are around somewhere and they're probably armed-"

"Clara!" Firth exclaimed, his face growing hard. "We'll handle it after we kill Nyx and Scylla."

"-and if this…I dunno, infection doesn't kill me today or tomorrow than I don't want to be tortured and killed by that horrible girl and left to die like some other forgotten –"

"_We'll handle it later_," Firth shook her shoulders. "You listen to me, Clara. We'll deal with it when Nyx and Scylla – when the people who don't deserve to win – are dead. You hear me?"

She sniffed again, refusing to make eye contact and already knowing the truth behind his words. If Firth did indeed manage to take down the two Careers, he would be walking out of here as a victor. Sam's ally the prior year may have embraced self-sacrifice as a virtue, but Firth did not. He was in this terrible game to win. If it cost Clara her life…Firth would do it.

"I don't feel good," she whimpered again, glancing at the spreading blotch on her arm.

"You've been out a day," Firth sat down next to her, putting an arm around her shivering body. "I wish I could give you something, but there's nothing but ruin in the arena now. Waves washed everything away…rubble, bodies, you name it. Just mud and empty buildings now; everything else's gone into the new lake the dam made."

Lightning crackled outside as Clara let tears fall out of her eyes. She thought of her family, likely so worried about her inevitable fate now. She thought of Sam, and of Clay – of her friends who had to be disappointed as she barreled towards a premature death. Did Sam think less of her? Were those dreams right – was she just a failed tribute now, another name to be lost to history?

"Clara, I just want you to know," Firth said with a soft voice, letting her rest her worn head on his shoulder. "Whatever happens…you've been one of the bravest people I've ever known. You've fought through all this, been with me and the group this whole time, battled everything the Gamesmakers have tossed at us and more. I couldn't ask for a better person to be by my side through the Games."

She nodded, fighting through her own emotions. She knew as well as Firth how these situations ended…and anyway she sliced it, it didn't look good for her.


	27. Forgive Me

Tiny beads of sweat popped out of the pores on Sam's forehead, coalescing together to form blobs of hydration that dripped down her face. A stray lock of hair on her head stuck down to her skin with sticky moisture. Chemicals reacted in her gut, sending waves of nervous energy bouncing about her stomach. All these physical cues spoke of imminent danger; of evolutionary cycles meant to protect her from whatever was within striking distance. This was one threat, however, that she couldn't defeat on her own.

Not without help. Not while Scylla and Nyx slowly weaved their way towards Firth and Clara's hiding spot. The two couldn't stay hidden forever.

"Okay," Sam closed her eyes, placing her hands on the hologrid table inside District 10's suite. The mentors of Districts 3, 7, 10, and 12 – along with Finnick – all stood around, each having voiced various opinions over the course of the morning of the seventh day of the 99th Hunger Games. More and more, it seemed as if it would also be the _last_ day in the arena.

"Okay what?" Johanna spoke up, pointing at the map. "Not enough time to do much now. Finnick, how much do you have to spare from your split sponsorship account with Jetty?"

"Seventy-two thousand. Around that," he shrugged. "Not enough on its own to send in anything really useful, even with our saving it up."

"Alright, combine that with whatever 3 and 10 have, and what we have," she indicated herself on the last bit, pointing out her district partner – the shadowy-complexioned, hollow-cheeked Locust, who stood nearby, as well. "That's enough to get some arms for Firth. What he needs is a damn weapon."

"What about Clara?" Sam spoke up defensively. "She's hurt! We need to get her something…something so she can still move. They can get out of there then…they don't have to stay and wait for the two Careers to come."

"She has a _broken fucking leg_," Johanna fired back. "She's dead. Plain and simple. Get over it."

"I'm not getting over it! She's my friend!"

"Johanna's right," Rory spoke up from a far seat. "Hate to agree with her…but if all of us in this room have thrown our lots in with these last two, then we need to back the one who has an actual chance of getting out, rather than trying some desperation attempt. Only one can win, anyway – might as well pick the best odds."

"Agreed," Alpha nodded in Rory's direction. "Simple equation. Finnick's son can bloody well fight and walk just fine. He needs help. Don't be doff, Sam. You have to see it."

"Doesn't matter," Johanna shrugged. "Dallas, just approve your district's funds for release into Finnick's hands. We'll combine it all with him, and he can get whatever we need to parachute in."

"_Don't you fucking dare_," Cheyenne snarled spontaneously at Dallas before he could even react. "We're acting as a consensus."

Sam looked up, unsure what to make of Cheyenne's outburst. She hadn't expected her to take her side – whether it was for her defense or some sort of reputation of the district she wanted to keep. Either way, she appreciated the sentiment – that, at the core of things, Cheyenne at least still had Clara in mind.

"You're…all looking at this like it's just…like it's just numbers," Sam spoke quietly. "Like it's just some game. It's her life…her _life_ down in the arena that is on the line."

"Which is exactly why we need to drop in something so that Firth stays alive," Johanna snapped. "Finnick, he's your son, back me up."

Finnick stood quietly off the side, looking at no one in particular. He had a strange statuesque quality to him in Sam's eyes; Finnick seemed lost in some other world, staring past an unidentifiable point in space. He looked up finally, his eyes catching Sam's with a haunting stare. It was a moment before he spoke: "I don't really have anything to add."

The man's eyes told Sam everything, however. It was the same lost look she'd seen in his wife Annie's eyes back in District 4 during her victory tour – but these conveyed a real and definite message: _Save my son, Sam. I'm begging you_.

From the corner of the suite, Haymitch stood up, stroking his scraggly mess of stubble that had grown in over the past week. He navigated through the crowd of people in the room, taking Sam by the shoulder and beginning to lead her to the door. "Why don't we all take a few minutes, huh?"

"They don't have more than an hour, Haymitch!"

"Why don't we take a few minutes, woman," he repeated with a growl to Johanna's protests, opening the door and leading Sam outside.

The woman's words drowned behind the closing door as Haymitch sat Sam down in a chair, kneeling down to look her right in the eye.

"Look, sweetheart," he said simply. "I'm not gonna tell you to do one thing or another, even if everyone else in there wants to."

Sam didn't really know Haymitch well, despite he having joined Rory in essentially camping in District 10's suite during the past week. Still, his aging yet spirited eyes told her she could trust him – that there was some semblance of wisdom behind a sarcastic and cynical façade.

"I don't want to be responsible for any more deaths," Sam said. "I'm tired of this."

"It's never easy," Haymitch calmed her, his voice lacking any of his usual jaded pessimism and humor. In the moment, he was now a mentor: only there to give Sam the boost she needed to push through. "You…you just do what you think is right."

He gave her a pained, forced smile, patting her once on the back before retreating to the suite. Sam put her face in her hands, rubbing her eyes deeply to stave off the tears that threatened to come rushing out. The endgame had come – and no matter what Haymitch or even her heart said, she knew she had only one option. Finnick's forlorn face sat in her thoughts – and Sam finally understood this great game after all. It wasn't about truths and lies, death and control. It was a game of loss – a sadistic culling where everyone, even the winners, failed to find peace. Lives were reduced to numbers; children sacrificed in decisions of who was more worthy of life. Storm's words from back in the canyon haunted her now in the depths of her pain: _There are no winners in the Hunger Games, Sam._

Sam couldn't win; couldn't find happiness even if Clara improbably came away with victory. But she did have one option – she could stave off the sufferings of a pair of broken parents. She could give Finnick and Annie the gift of their son, alive and well. It wasn't much – and it would drive her further into the crushing blows that came again and again – but it was the last card she could play. The game was over; the house reigned supreme.

She walked back into the suite slowly, the Control Center passing by her like a dream state. Tears streaked down her cheeks and left trickling tracks of black, betraying her thoughts to the quiet group of mentors that stood around.

_I'm letting you down, Clara. I've failed you. I'm sorry…please forgive me. _

"Take it. Take the money," Sam whispered her voice breaking as she caught the faintest flicker of a spark in Finnick's eyes. "Take it all."

* * *

**The Arena**

Lightning cracked across a cruel sky; a brilliant reminder of the danger that still lurked on the worn urban streets. A winged drone shot low over Chicago's empty avenues, ferrying two small, silver-wrapped packages in its undercarriage. It hung low on booster engines for a mere second, finding an exact location before releasing its payload. Like a gnat the drone scooted away; firing afterburners to depart the scene as soon as possible. Below, the two packages bloomed on silver parachutes: they rode slowly down to the ground like avenging angels on wings of gray, fitting for a world that had so long ago lost its color.

_Thunk!_ Firth risked a peek out from his cover with Clara, catching sight of the gleaming sheens of silver. He let a smile play across his lips, telling his wounded ally to stay put as he investigated. Caught in one silver parachute was a blessing from his mentors – a black mesh net with a wrist drawcord, maybe six feet in width. It was more than capable of taking someone down.

If that was a blessing, however, the second parachute was nothing short of a miracle. Firth allowed himself a gasp – how had his father even managed to scrape up enough money for this gift, this late in the Games? An iron trident lay underneath the silver gossamer of the parachute, gleaming in flashes of white lightning. It was not just a weapon – it was a shining beacon of victory. Someone, somewhere, was smiling on him today.

Others, however, were not.

Just as Firth had managed to coil up the net in his right hand, picking up the trident with his left and hoisting it around to test its weight, a familiar husky voice caught his attention.

"Pretty gift, Odair. Didn't you have someone left to get rid of?"

_Boom!_

Firth twisted around quickly, seeing a horrific sight. Scylla's still-twitching body hung off a gladius wielded by Nyx, stabbed in the rear of her neck with the weapon impaling her straight through the mouth. His district partner's eyes were gaped wide in shock, her face showing a never-ending expression of terror. Nyx let the corpse slide off the weapon and crumple to the ground with a sense of finality, removing Scylla's short, curved knife from her belt and equipping it herself.

"Didn't even get a chance to scream," Nyx commented as if watching paint dry. "It was a good kill. Visceral and painful – how death is meant to be. The two of us scoped your position out for thirty minutes; I know your little girlfriend is in there. Why doesn't she join us…or were you planning to kill her some other time?"

"Why don't you leave her out of this," Firth growled, his grip tightening on his newfound weapons. "Clara, stay in there."

"No! No, no…I'm coming, just hold on!"

"No, Clara!"

Clara didn't heed his words. She hauled herself out of the collapsed storefront, holding a thick piece of concrete in her good hand and panting heavily. The infection on her off-arm had spread, nearly disabling the entire limb. She dragged her broken leg behind her as a limp – and already Nyx could sense blood in the water.

"Should have listened to your boy-toy," Nyx looked amused, running a hand arrogantly through her many braids. "Do you plan on bleeding on me? Break your other leg at me?"

"If someone's going to die, it's you," Clara breathed heavily.

"No. Wrong."

Nyx set down her gladius as if inviting Firth to attack. Rapidly, however, she snatched the knife off her belt, neglecting to even switch her grip on the small weapon and hurtling it at breakneck speed towards Clara. Neither she nor Firth saw the move coming, and consequently both failed to stop it. The blade hit with a _splut!_ and buried itself three inches deep in Clara's sternum. She recoiled in shock, her expression barely recognizing the speedy attack by Nyx. It had come without warning, without preparation – and already, the girl from District 2 had her sword back in hand.

"No!" Firth yelled, grabbing his net and charging at Nyx like a crazed animal.

"That'll piss you off," Nyx smiled, taking a step back to steady herself in defense. "Let's see if your famous daddy will cry when I win."

Nyx toted her gladius in one hand, using her left to stabilize herself as Firth roared in. The boy from 4 swept low with his net, casting it underhand to catch the girl's feet in the tangled mesh. It was a miss; she hopped over the attempt, skipping backwards and staying on her toes to avoid toppling. Firth pulled back on the drawstring rapidly, pulling the net back in and waiting for another chance to strike. He stayed quick and nimble, using speed and reach to keep her brute strength out of the way.

"You damn coward," Nyx spat. "Throw away that pitiful thing and come fight me, steel to steel."

Firth didn't heed her demands. He tried another attempt with the net, aiming for her thighs and waist. Nyx expected this one, dodging to the side before slashing down with her gladius. Firth didn't have time to draw the net back; in one sweep, his attacker severed the cord and cut the net away. Now it was his trident on her blade – he had only his reach to keep her and her quick, lethal weapon away.

She sidestepped and launched an attack, propelling off a thick piece of rubble that hadn't been washed away to throw herself at him. Firth reached out with his trident like a hoplite, catching Nyx's weapon in the prongs of his polearm and twisting to the left. She let out a carnal roar, forcing her gladius down against his trident and rushing him for a straight wrestling match. Firth barely had time to respond before she came in. He struck her with the butt of his weapon, not even slowing her down as she drove him to the ground.

Firth rolled and dodged as she leveled a blow into the dirt, yelling in rage and pain. Nyx managed to get a hand on her gladius with his maneuver, swiping upwards and across Firth's underarm. Scarlet drops of blood splashed out from a flesh wound, eliciting a cry of surprise from Firth. Using his own years of training, he ignored the hit and slammed his palm against the crook of her elbow, sending numbing waves through her arm and causing the gladius to fall to the muddy ground.

Nyx wouldn't give up that quickly. She attacked Firth's wrist with her teeth, biting down with extreme force and making him back off. Quickly she launched a counterattack, sweeping an elbow into his left cheekbone and driving her off-hand fist into his chin. Firth got to his feet and stepped back woozily, letting Nyx have just the time she needed to snatch his ankles and wrench him to the ground. He fought to grab hold of his trident as she picked up the gladius, swinging it forward to gore him through the heart.

_Thud!_ A block of concrete smacked Nyx in the head as she tried, sending her crumpling to the mud. Firth didn't stop to see the results, swinging his arm out like a counterweight to the trident and slamming it home. The three prongs split open Nyx's stomach like a torn water sac, releasing its contents into a steaming pile of innards on the damp earth. The girl from District 2 let out a long scream – not the primal cries of rage or anger of before, but finally one of real pain and agony.

_Fear._

Firth snarled at the wounded tribute, getting back to his feet and hoisting the trident high. Without bothering to show her quarter or mercy – any time in which she could mount however improbable an attack – he shoved the trident's prongs straight into her face. Two drove through her eye socket and cheek, with the other homing in directly into her windpipe. Nyx's body shook violently, spasming in violent death before finally coming to a cold, sorrowful stop in the grimy Chicago mud.

"Clara!" Firth dropped his trident, turning away from the girl's body and towards his stone-throwing ally. She lay upon the ground, her head half-submerged in the gray muck of the empty street. The knife still stuck out of her stomach like a cruel insult to Firth – Nyx's final, bitter curse on his efforts. Clara curled her knees with weak, quivering motions towards her chest, careful not to disrupt the blade but clearly feeling the life draining from the heavily-bleeding wound.

"Clara, _goddammit_," Firth picked her head up off the ground, cradling it in his arms as Nyx's cannon shot fired. "Don't you die on me. Don't you dare die on me!"

"It's cold," she weakly made out, gasping between ragged breaths. "Why did it get so dark?"

Firth exhaled sharply, fighting to maintain control on the blood-soaked earth. He stroked Clara's dirt-streaked hair, letting his fingers come to rest on her furrowed brow. Her movements came slower and slower, little shifting vibrations in his arms that spoke of a life almost complete.

"Firth," she squeaked out, her voice barely audible. "Tell…tell…"

"I'm listening, Clara," he re-assured her, pulling her closer for support. "You're gonna be just fine in just a bit, okay?"

"Tell Sammy…tell her to tell my family I love them. Tell her I still love her…okay?"

"I will," he said, meaning every word. "I will. Don't you worry Clara…you just rest. You've done all you could."

"Think sleep is all I have left," she said, her eyes already closed and her mouth barely moving with the sounds. "Thanks…Firth. Thanks…for getting me this far. I think I'll do the rest."

Clara let the encroaching darkness pull her forth from the wretched ruins, feeling the world around her grow soft and distant. Images flashed past her mind – of the Bowie family ranch, of her mother and father, of riding along the prairie as a younger child – and of all the times Clay and Sam had joined her in making seventeen years in District 10 feel like time well-lived. Life could be slipping away for a final sleep in the mausoleum of nightmares past, but her own memories and dreams brought Clara a final modicum of peace as she dropped her dying fight to the ground.

At last, Clara was no more.

Firth got to his knees, a pained frown on his face. He slipped the dagger out of her sternum, taking her hands and folding them across her chest to hide the wound. As Claudius Templesmith's voice came over the trumpets to announce his victory, however, Firth felt he was not finished.

He grabbed the dagger, picking up Nyx's gladius in his other hand and turning towards the cooling corpse of the tribute who had taken Clara's life. A raging fury roared over him as he brought the dagger down through Nyx's already-destroyed face, leaving the blade impaled through dead flesh and broken bone. With a spark of raw anger, Firth swung down the gladius with all the might he had laterally along Nyx's neck. Her head separated cleanly from her neck, delivering a final blow to the brute who had cruelly taken life without remorse.

Firth tossed the gladius away, walking down the Avenue slowly without a look back as the hovercraft appeared before him.

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_**A/N: Terrible bit there, fans of Clara. But only one can win...**_**_felt dang good about that fight scene. I chucked research about gladiator styles into that puppy, so I hope it came across with all the violence I wanted to convey. Just a reminder; like in "From Dust," I'll have two more chapters (a conclusion and an epilogue) before the next story, "Tributes of the Sun," is released.  
_**

**_Also big thanks to the four reviews for the last chapter! Majorly appreciated the feedback. Also, shout-out to ML Caro for all the reviews recently; big thanks. Every one helps me produce better stories and chapters for you all!  
_**


	28. Epilogue: What Have I Become?

_**A/N: Yeah, what I said about two more chapters…yeah, never mind that. This is gonna be the epilogue and ending to "Empire;" I figured re-iterating things in the wrap-up would be wasteful and wouldn't advance anything meaningfully. Installment #3 will be up late Thursday/Friday, depending on what part of the world your time zone is. It'll move into the fallout of Clara's death on our people in District 10, the Odairs and their relationship with Sam, as well as the Capitol and all its little players advancing forward with the muck it's in…all of it bringing our band of protagonists and antagonists back into the fray.**_

_**As I do with epilogues, this will be in Sam's voice**_._** Once again, I want to thank everyone who's stuck on the ship through this entire story, helping shape it into the best it could be. Major league thanks.**_

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It's done. What I've done has set everything in motion.

We were all herded out of the Control Center just as Firth was collected from the arena, steered towards awaiting trains in a hurried, frantic mess. I didn't even have a chance to say goodbye to anyone; not as if I was in the mood to. I don't want to go over the little things of Clara's death…but I know I have to confront this reality if I ever want to move on. I can't keep pretending I live in a bubble anymore, cut off from the nightmarish things that happen outside my small perspective. These Games taught me there's no escape for me; for any of us.

Rex was arrested just after we were sent to the trains. The televisions on the ride back were full of coverage – between the end of the Games and that, I don't think Claudius and Constantine could find room for a breath of air. I'm glad I don't have to stick around…glad that President Octavian let me go rather than force me to keep playing as his pawn. I know that's not behind me, but I can't handle that sort of danger with the horrifying memory of Nyx's knife hitting its mark so fresh.

I shudder to think what that all means for me…and for anyone around me. Why was Rex so complacent – so willing to be taken in? Even when I first spoke with him during the Games, he seemed not to care. It can't be his last card; if he and the President are still battling, how much more am I going to get involved? What's even left for me to do? I can't run anywhere…I'm trapped in a collapsing ball that's quickly becoming my prison.

The mountains are gone this morning as I look out the windows of the train. All I can see are golden plains spreading out to the horizon, with not even a tree to break up all the flatness. It's refreshing to see something that at least speaks of home…even if I'm still on this horrible ride.

But it doesn't look like I'll ever be able to get off it, either.

Strangely, Cheyenne has warmed up. She came to check on me yesterday when I was doing nothing but just crying my eyes out in my room. Dallas and her have given me plenty of space, but both are there for me when I need someone. It's good to know that I'm not alone when all I can feel is an empty hole in my heart.

Clara, _God_. She was my best friend, everything a girl like me could want in a partner in crime. Now she's gone…maybe not in my memories, but I'll never be able to hear her laughing banter or see her carefree smile again. She's headed back to District 10, just like me…but she's headed on her last trip. I've got to face the road ahead without her.

What have I become? I'm a monster; a sixteen year-old who can caustically toss away the life of someone who completely trusted her. Normal people don't do these things; normal children don't play with toys of life and death. Only those who've had their souls broken and thrown away can do that. These things the Capitol gives me for my participation…wealth for life, a big house, Capitol food; you can have it all. Take it, please. I don't want any more of this empire of bones I've been gifted.

The bloody record carved in my wake is getting bigger with the passage of time. Storm, Gannet, Waco…Clara. Who else can the Capitol take from me? Who else…can _I_ take away?

Perhaps it doesn't matter. I'm learning that everyone I know falls away in the end.

Maybe it's I who needs to fall for once.


End file.
